Regime Transition of Pin-to-Plate Nanosecond Pulsed Discharge under Low Pressure

Abstract

In order to study air discharge characteristics in the inlet of supersonic aircraft and explore an effective way to avoid such adverse regimes of discharge as spark, arc, or corona discharge, a nanosecond pulsed pin-to-plate discharge experiment is carried out for pressure ranging from 500 to 5000 Pa and temperature from 295 to 425 K. The study shows that glow-to-corona and corona-to-glow transitions can be realized by changing pressure. Specifically, with the temperature of 295 K and interelectrode distance of 10 mm, the pressures of corona discharge and glow discharge are 4500 and 1000 Pa, respectively, for the corresponding applied voltage of 4.56 and 8.25 kV. However, glow-to-spark transition cannot be obtained by varying pressure but increasing the applied voltage, which is a determined factor, and the peak voltage increases to 12.4 kV under spark regime. Overall, the regimes of discharge are jointly determined by interelectrode distance and pressure; but temperature could also effectively influence the discharge, the higher the temperature, the easier the breakdown is. The experiment results pave the way for follow-up further research on the characteristics of discharge in supersonic airflow.