Effect of boundary conditions on the heat flux to the wall in two-temperature modeling of ‘thermal’ plasmas

Abstract

In this paper we propose new boundary conditions at floating and biased walls for two-temperature thermal arc models. In the derived boundary conditions the walls are assumed to be cold and therefore there is no thermionic electron emission and erosion of the wall. The boundary conditions previously used in modeling high-pressure thermal arcs ignore the formation of a plasma sheath at floating walls. As shown in the paper, using the sheath boundary conditions lead to a drastic increase in the heat flux to the wall that has to be taken into account in modeling thermal arcs and heat transfer.