Peculiarities of the development of ionization instability of various scales in the air gas discharge

Abstract

In this work, the air gas discharge of constant voltage, organized in an unlimited chamber without the side walls, is experimentally studied, which leads to a stratification of the discharge region due to the development of ionization instability. Depending on the conditions of the discharge (pressure or magnitude of the gas discharge current), the scale of the ionization striations changes, which leads to the layered structure of the plasma medium and the possibility of creating layers of different thicknesses, where not only the electronic temperature, but also the gas temperature are different. Various types of discharge were obtained in the work, from large-scale structured ones (3-5 striations per discharge length) to small-scale ones (20-25 striations per discharge length), and the conditions for their occurrence and development were investigated. The main diagnostic parameters are gas pressure, the magnitude of the gas discharge current, which is changed by a change in the load resistance, the size and frequency of the ionization waves, estimation of electronic and gas temperatures at different points of the discharge. Gas discharges of this kind can be used to structuring the air environment, gas mixing and supersonic flows control.