Calculation of air-water vapor mixtures thermal plasmas transport coefficients

Abstract

Knowledge of transport coefficients of air-water vapor mixtures thermal plasmas is important to estimate the performances of electrical arc cutting in this gas by a circuit breaker. In this paper, air-water vapor mixtures thermal plasmas dynamical viscosity, thermal and electrical conductivities coefficients are calculated in a temperature range from 5000K to 30000K. The calculations are carried out by supposing local thermodynamic equilibrium at pressure of 1.0 atm, 5.0 atm and 10 atm. The calculation results show the influence of the water vapor initial proportion but also that of the plasmas pressure on these transport coefficients. The plasma of the mixture constituted by 20% of air and 80% of water vapor presents at first sight good characteristics for the electric current cut. It has the highest thermal conductivity and the lowest electrical conductivity among plasmas of studied mixtures.