Calculation of combined diffusion coefficients in SF6-Cu mixtures

Abstract

Diffusion coefficients play an important role in the description of the transport of metal vapours in gas mixtures. This paper is devoted to the calculation of four combined diffusion coefficients, namely, the combined ordinary diffusion coefficient, combined electric field diffusion coefficient, combined temperature diffusion coefficient, and combined pressure diffusion coefficient in SF6-Cu mixtures at temperatures up to 30 000 K. These four coefficients describe diffusion due to composition gradients, applied electric fields, temperature gradients, and pressure gradients, respectively. The influence of copper fluoride and sulfide species on the diffusion coefficients is shown to be negligible. The effect of copper proportion and gas pressures on these diffusion coefficients is investigated. It is shown that increasing the proportion of copper generally increases the magnitude of the four diffusion coefficients, except for copper mole fractions of 90% or more. It is further found that increasing the pressure reduces the magnitude of the coefficients, except for the combined temperature diffusion coefficient, and shifts the maximum of all four coefficients towards higher temperatures. The results presented in this paper can be applied to the simulation of high-voltage circuit breaker arcs.