Boundary conditions at the walls with thermionic electron emission in two temperature modeling of “thermal” plasmas

Abstract

In this paper, we propose new boundary conditions for the electric potential, the electron energy equation, and the energy equation for heavy particles (ions and neutrals) at the hot walls with thermionic electron emission for two-temperature thermal arc models. The derived boundary conditions assume that the walls are made from refractory metals and, consequently, the erosion of the wall is small and can be neglected. In these boundary conditions, the plasma sheath formed at the electrode is viewed as the interface between the plasma and the wall. The derived boundary conditions allow the calculation of the heat flux to the walls from the plasma. This allows the calculation of the thermionic electron current that makes the model of electrode-plasma interaction self-consistent.