Dynamics of cathode spots in low-pressure arc plasma removing oxide layer on steel surfaces

摘要

The dynamics of cathode spots has been investigated in low-pressure arc plasma for removing oxide layer on low carbon steel surfaces. The motion of cathode spots was observed with a high speed camera, and the arc voltage was analyzed by fast Fourier transform. The spots move on clean steel surface as a random walk, and the low-frequency components dominated the voltage waveform. However, the spots on steel surfaces with oxide layer tend to burn on the rim of the eroded area formed in the previous arcing, and the low-frequency components decrease correspondingly. The "color" of the colored random noise for arc voltage varies from the approximate brown noise for clean steel surface to pink noise for thick oxide layer, where the edge effect of boundary is considered to play a significant role. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.