Modeling of dielectric barrier discharge and resulting fluid dynamics

Abstract

Glow discharge at atmospheric pressure using a dielectric barrier discharge can induce fluid flow, and operate as an actuator in flow control. In the present work, a modeling framework is presented to study the evolution and interaction of such athermal non-equilibrium plasma discharges in conjunction with low Mach number fluid dynamics. Under atmospheric pressure, the discharge can be simulated using a plasmafluid instead of a kinetic model. The plasma and fluid species are treated as a two-fluid system coupled through force and pressure interactions, over a few decades of length and time scales. The multiple-scale processes such as convection, diffusion, and reaction/ionization mechanisms make the transport equations of the plasma dynamics stiff. To handle the stiffness, a sequential finite-volume operator-split algorithm capable of conserving space charge is employed. The fluid dynamics is solved using a pressurebased algorithm in a multi-block framework and can handle 3-D curvilinear grids. A body force treatment is devised to link the plasma dynamics and fluid dynamics. The resulting body force field can improve a previously proposed analytical-empirical treatment. The outcome of the body force field on the fluid flow is an attached wall jet type flow capable of modifying the near wall flow structures.