Coupled gas flow-plasma model for a gliding arc: investigations of the back-breakdown phenomenon and its effect on the gliding arc characteristics

We present a 3D and 2D Cartesian quasi-neutral plasma model for a low current argon gliding arc discharge, including strong interactions between the gas flow and arc plasma column. The 3D model is applied only for a short time of 0.2 ms due to its huge computational cost. It mainly serves to verify the reliability of the 2D model. As the results in 2D compare well with those in 3D, they can be used for a better understanding of the gliding arc basic characteristics. More specifically, we investigate the back-breakdown phenomenon induced by an artificially controlled plasma channel, and we discuss its effect on the gliding arc characteristics. The back-breakdown phenomenon, or backward-jump motion of the arc, as observed in the experiments, results in a drop of the gas temperature, as well as in a delay of the arc velocity with respect to the gas flow velocity, allowing more gas to pass through the arc, and thus increasing the efficiency of the gliding arc for gas treatment applications. (paper)