Fluid model for a partially packed dielectric barrier discharge plasma reactor

摘要

In this work, a two-dimensional numerical udfluid model is developed for a partiallyudpacked dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in pure helium. Inudfluence of packing onudthe discharge characteristics is studied by comparing the results of DBD with partialudpacking with those obtained for DBD with no packing. In the axial partial packingudconfiguration studied in this work, the electric field strength was shown to be enudhanced at the top surface of the spherical packing material and at the contact pointsudbetween the packing and the dielectric layer. For each value of applied potential,udDBD with partial packing showed an increase in the number of pulses in the currentudprofile in the positive half cycle of the applied voltage, as compared to DBD withudno packing. Addition of partial packing to the plasma-alone DBD also led to anudincrease in the electron and ion number densities at the moment of breakdown. Theudtime averaged electron energy profiles showed that a much higher range of electronudenergy can be achieved with the use of partial packing as compared to no packingudin a DBD, at the same applied power. The spatially and time averaged values overudone voltage cycle also showed an increase in power density and electron energy onudinclusion of partial packing in the DBD. For the applied voltage parameters studiedudin this work, the discharge was found to be consistently homogeneous and showedudthe characteristics of atmospheric pressure glow discharge.