Hydrodynamic chemical non-equilibrium model of a pulsed arc discharge in dry air at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

We developed a time-dependent hydrodynamic chemical non-equilibrium model to simulate the transient behaviour of a pulsed arc discharge in dry air at atmospheric pressure. This model simultaneously solves the momentum and energy conservation equations and the mass conservation equation of each species, combining Ohm's and Ampere's laws and the state equation. Seventy-six elementary reactions in dry-air plasmas were considered in this study. These calculations introduced the influence of chemical non-equilibrium composition on thermodynamic and transport properties of dry-air plasmas. Time evolutions in the radial distributions of the number density, the temperature and the pressure in the discharge were derived. Calculation results indicated good agreement with experimental ones in terms of the number density distribution, the expanding velocity of the shock-wave front and the pressure evolution.