Numerical Analysis of the Joule Heating Effect on Plasma Heat Transfer

The application of thermal plasmas particularly in the field of plasma chemistry and plasma material processing requires a basic understanding of the heat transfer process. This paper is concerned with an analysis of the heat transfer to a positively biased body exposed to a plasma flow. Because of the induced current flow due to the biasing potential, the plasma surrounding the biased body will experience an increase in temperature caused by Joule heating. The fraction α of the dissipated heat which is transferred to the body is calculated for an atmospheric argon plasma flow at temperatures between 104 and 2 × 104K and Reynolds numbers of 40 and zero. The results indicate that α increases with increasing plasma temperature for Re = 40 and decreases slightly with increasing plasma temperature for Re = 0. As the Re number increases at constant plasma temperature α decreases.