The Resistance of a High-Current Pulsed Discharge in Nitrogen

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to propose a method for accurate prediction of the resistance of a high-current pulsed arc discharge. The nine theoretical and empirical formulas of arc resistance, which have been reported, are compared using the measured values of arc resistance for unipolar arc discharges in nitrogen gas with various maximum currents. The arc resistance was obtained accurately by solving the circuit equation using measured values of the current and breakdown voltage. Each arc resistance equation was numerically evaluated and then normalized by the arc resistance at the time of maximum arc current. The results indicated that Kushner et al..'s predictions [rf1] provided the best overall results with the lowest accumulation of errors. Additionally, the measured arc resistance takes the minimum value at the time of arc maximum current, and the value can be expressed by a function of the maximum current.