Abstract - With dramatic development of rail transit and high-voltage direct-current (DC) transmission systems, the DC power transmission and distribution system has attracted much attention of researchers. In the preceding applications, the DC circuit breaker plays a vital role in carrying current, converting system operation mode, and cutting off fault current [1-2]. During the operating process of DC circuit breakers, there exist complex mass-momentum-energy non-equilibrium synergistic transport processes involving various non-equilibrium effects, e.g., thermodynamic, chemical, electrical non-equilibria with species Maxwellian velocity distributions, or even deviations from the Maxwellian velocity or energy distributions for certain species under some specific conditions. In this study, a model atmospheric plasma system (MAPS) based on a free burning arc generator is established based on our previous studies concerning the thermodynamic and chemical non-equilibrium synergistic effects in an atmospheric-pressure high-intensity free-burning argon arc plasma [3]. The non-equilibrium synergistic mass-momentum-energy exchange (MMEE) processes in an argon MAPS under different arc currents are studied numerically and experimentally. The modeling results are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. The research results are helpful not only for deepening understandings to the non-equilibrium synergistic transport processes in arc plasmas,  but also for promoting, or even creating novel applications of arc plasmas in various fields.

Keywords: arc plasma; non-equilibrium characteristics; numerical simulation



Acknowledgement: This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 12075132, 11775128).



References:

[1] C M Franck, HVDC circuit breakers: a review identifying future research needs, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, 2011, 26: 998.

[2] F Yang, R Ma, Y Wu, H Sun, C-P Niu, M-Z Rong, Numerical study on arc plasma behavior during arc commutation process in direct current circuit breaker, Plasma Science and Technology, 2012, 14: 167.

[3] H Guo, X-N Zhang, J Chen, H-P Li, K Ostrikov, Non-equilibrium synergistic effects in atmospheric pressure plasmas, Scientific Reports, 2018, 8: 4783.