An ionic wind pump is an energy-saving device that can produce a volume flow when electrodes are applied with high voltage. Compared to the traditional methods, ionic wind pumps possess the advantages of low energy consumption, no moving parts, compact structure and flexible design. In this study, a large-size ionic wind pump, consisting of many single regular hexagonal needle-ring ionic wind generators, was developed as the preliminary model. However, its experimental performance was not as good as our expectations. In order to improve this preliminary model, a simulation method was used to investigate the configuration factors of the single ionic wind pump. In the optimized model, mesh gap is 6 mm, eccentricity is 0.26, section area is 238.44 mm(2) and needle electrode number is 3. In subsequent experiments, the final optimized large-size ionic wind pump showed a great promotion in velocity, and the maximum average velocity of the optimized pump was higher than the preliminary model by 13.3%. Our numerical simulation and experiment results have practical significance in designing ionic wind pumps. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.