Changes of Electrical Conductivity and Temperature Caused by Cathode Erosion in a Free-Burning Argon Arc

Electrode erosion is indispensable for atmospheric plasma systems, as well as for switching devices, due to the high heat flux transferred from arc plasmas to contacts, but experimental and theoretical works have not identified the characteristic phenomena because of the complex physical processes. Our investigation is concerned with argon free-burning arcs with anode erosion at atmospheric pressure by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. We are also interested in the energy flux and temperature transferring to the anode with a simplified unified model of arcs and their electrodes. In order to determine two thermodynamic quantities such as temperature and pressure and flow characteristics we have modified Navier-Stokes equations to take into account radiation transport, electrical power input and the electromagnetic driving forces with the relevant Maxwell equations. From the simplified self-consistent solution the energy flux to the anode can be derived.