Use of Pulsed Plasma Jets as Highly Effective Igniters

摘要

The use of pulsed plasma jets as highly effective igniters has attracted much interest. This work is concerned with releasing much higher amounts of energy, for ignition in guns and other reasons detailed below. Feeds of specific plasma media to the small cavity within the body of the igniter have been employed in some of the previous work with the object of generating particular radicals in the discharge; however, any chemical energy release within a 30 microliter cavity tends to be very small in comparison with the electrical energy input, even when the plasma medium consists of oxygen/fuel mixtures. This is inevitable so long as gaseous reactant feeds are used, unless we modify the system by going to very large cavities or high pressures. In order to release high energies in such plugs, it is necessary to use condensed phase feeds for both fuel and oxidants. Since solid explosives would be difficult to feed for repetitive use, we employ high energy liquids.