The Advantages of Non-Thermal Plasma for Detonation Initiation Compared with Spark Plug

In this paper, the characteristics of detonation combustion ignited by AC-driven non-thermal plasma and spark plug in air/acetylene mixture have been compared in a double-tube experiment system. The two tubes had the same structure, and their closed ends were installed with a plasma generator and a spark plug, respectively. The propagation characteristics of the flame were measured by pressure sensors and ion probes. The experiment results show that, compared with a spark plug, the non-thermal plasma obviously broadened the range of equivalence ratio when the detonation wave could develop successfully, it also heightened the pressure value of detonation wave. Meanwhile, the detonation wave development time and the entire flame propagation time were reduced by half. All of these advantages benefited from the larger ignition volume when a non-thermal plasma was applied. (paper)