Simulations of Electrical Discharges in Air Using Stabilized Drift-Diffusion Model

The implementation of a drift-diffusion model of discharges in air utilizing stabilized logarithmic finite-element formulation of governing equations is presented. The performance of the proposed method is examined in a number of numerical tests. The developed approach is verified by conducting simulations of a positive streamer in air in a needle-plane electrode system, and the results are compared with those available in the literature. Furthermore, the simulations of a nonaxially propagating double-headed discharge developing between edges of flat disk electrodes are presented and discussed.