Application of nonlinear dynamic techniques to high pressure plasma jets

Abstract

Arcs and arc plasmas have been known and used for welding, cutting, chemical synthesis and multitude of other industrial applications for more than hundred years. Though a copious source of heat, light and active species, plasma arc is inherently unstable, turbulent and difficult to control. During recent years, primarily driven by the need of new and energy efficient materials processing, various research groups around the world have been studying new and innovative ways of looking at the issues related to arc dynamics, arc stabilization, species non equilibrium, flow and heat transfer in a stabilized arc plasma device. In this context, experimental determination of nature of arc instabilities using tools of non-linear dynamics, theoretical model formulation, prediction of instability behavior under given operating conditions and possible control methods for the observed instabilities in arcs are reviewed.Space selective probing of the zones inside arc plasma devices without disturbing the system is probably the best way to identify the originating zone of instabilities inside such devices. Existence of extremely high temperature and inaccessibility to direct experimentations due to mechanical obstructions make this task extremely difficult. Probing instabilities in otherwise inaccessible inner regions of the torches, using binary gas mixture as plasma gas is a novel technique that primarily rests on a process known as demixing in arcs. Once a binary gas mixture enters the constricted plasma column, the demixing process sets in causing spatial variations for each of the constituent gases depending on the diffusion coefficients and the gradient of the existing temperature field. By varying concentrations of the constituent gases in the feeding line, it is possible to obtain spatial variations of the plasma composition in a desired manner, enabling spatial probing of the associated zones. Detailed compositional description of different zones inside the torch may be obtained through appropriate numerical simulation. Potential of such experiments with judicious mix of numerical simulations is discussed.