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I. INTRODUCTION
One of the most important applications of atmospheric
pressure plasma is in
the corona discharge system, for the potential reduction
of NOx and SOx gas emissions from diesel engines. The
reason for its usefulness in this application is the high
electron-to-gas temperature ratio in corona discharge
plasmas. Even with a high degree of excitation, the
carrier gas remains moderately cool, making the plasma
generated by the corona discharge especially suitable for
gas purification, [14] and highly efficient in terms of
transferring source power into promoting chemical reaction. Efficient plasma generation is the key issue in the
device. The electrical power needed for the plasma generation is one of the main operating costs of the corona discharge system; less power consumption for plasma generation makes the corona discharge system more economical. However, the conventional corona discharge system
for the emission control application requires a high electrical voltage (typically 45 kV or higher), making its high
voltage modulator heavy and bulky with insulating material. In this context, the application of a conventional
system to a mobile engine is difficult and impractical.
Remember that the discharge gas from a diesel engine
is hot. We, therefore, investigate the influence of the
gas temperature on the electrical breakdown properties
in the cylindrical electrode system.
A theoretical model of the electrical breakdown in a
cylindrical electrode system is briefly summarized in Sec.
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2, by making use of Paschens law. The electrical breakdown voltage is obtained in terms of the aspect ratio
a/b, where a and b are radii of the inner and outer electrodes, respectively. The breakdown voltage increases,
reaches its peak and decreases, as the aspect ratio a/b
increases from 0.01 to unity. Experimental investigation of the breakdown voltage is carried out in Sec. 3
for several different gases. The experimental data agree
remarkably well with the theoretical predictions. The
breakdown voltage V in a high gas temperature Tg is
given by V = (Tr /Tg )V0 [Eq. (7)], where V0 is the electrical breakdown voltage in a gas with the ambient room
temperature of Tr = 300 K. As is obvious from Eq. (7),
the breakdown voltage decreases as the gas temperature
Tg increases. The experimental data agree well with the
theoretical values given by Eq. (7). Assuming the gas
temperature Tg = 900 K, which is typical of the discharge gas from a diesel engine, the breakdown voltage
V is one third of that for the room temperature (Tr )
gas. Thus, the required breakdown voltage in a hot gas
can be reduced to below than 15 kV, drastically reducing
the size and weight of the high-voltage modulator, and
thereby making a practical application to a mobile engine. We also remind the reader that the electrical power
is proportional to the square of the electrical voltage in
a capacitive system. Therefore, the required electrical
power of the corona discharge system operating in a hot
gas also decreases drastically, making the system more
economical.
hsuhm@ajou.ac.kr
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V
r ln(b/a)
(1)
where a is the surface radius of the inner cylindrical electrode and b is the inner surface radius of the outer electrode. Note that the radius b must be bigger than the
radius a; in other words, b > a, for physical meaning.
The radial coordinate r is the radial distance from the
axis of the coaxial cylinders. The ionization coefficient
of the discharge gas is very often expressed as
p
(E/p) = hp exp g
,
(2)
E
where E is the electric field strength in units of volts/cm,
and p is the gas pressure in units of atmospheres. The coefficients [57] h and g are obtained from the experimental data. The coefficients h and g of air are given by h =
3.5 103 cm1 atm1 and g = 1.65 105 volt/cmatm,
which are valid only for electric fields satisfying 1.25
103 V/cm atm < E/p < 2 105 V/cmatm. The extra production of charged particles to be added is due
to a secondary effect called the Townsend second ionization coefficient , which represents the extra electron
emission from the cathode and which is defined as the
cathode yield in electrons per incident ions.
The relation between the ionization coefficient and
is given by
b
Z
1
exp dr = 1 +
(3)
which is known as the Townsend criterion, or the sparking criterion. [8,9] Equation (3) will determine the breakdown conditions. Substituting Eqs. (1) and (2) into Eq.
(3) and carrying out a straightforward algebraic manipulation, we obtain [10,11]
b
f (y) = exp(y) exp y
a
g ln(b/a)
1
=
ln 1 +
,
(4)
hV0
(5)
is proportional to the pressure p. The breakdown voltage V0 in cylindrical diodes can be determined from Eq.
(4) in terms of the aspect ratio a/b and the gas pressure p. Note that the function f (y) in Eq. (4) is also
Fig. 1. Plots of the theoretical and experimental breakdown voltages versus the aspect ratio a/b for nitrogen gas.
(6)
for a specified chamber volume. Here, p is the pressure inside the system and Tg is the gas temperature in
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Kelvin. Therefore, the essential parameter of the electrical discharge in an electric field is ET/p. The breakdown
field in a hot gas is given by [12] E/p = cT r /Tg , where Tr
is the room temperature and Tg is the gas temperature.
The constant c is experimentally measured for gases, and
it is in units of kV/cmatm. The breakdown electric field
E is inversely proportional to gas temperature, thereby
decreasing as the gas temperature increases. Therefore,
the breakdown voltage V in a hot gas is given by
V =
Tr
V0
Tg
(7)
slightly higher than that for the inner cathode. The ratio
of the coefficient gni for nitrogen to the coefficient gair
for air is found [9] to be gni /gair = 0.94. Thus, the coefficient g for nitrogen molecules is given by gni = 1.55
105 volt/cmatm for gair =1.65105 volt/cmatm. The
secondary ionization coefficient is not known and is
also difficult to measure. We, therefore, define the coefficient = ln(1+1/)/h, which is a logarithmic function
of the coefficient . The curve in Fig. 1 is obtained
from Eq. (4) for = 3.26 103 cmatm, which is the
least-squares-fitted to the experimental data. Both the
theoretical results and experimental data indicate that
the breakdown voltage in a cylindrical electrode system
has its maximum value at the aspect ratio a/b = 0.3.
The experimental data agree reasonably well with the
theoretical curve.
The influence of the gas temperature on the breakdown voltage in a cylindrical electrode system is investigated by making use of a high temperature furnace.
Figure 2 shows the experimental configuration for the
high gas-temperature experiment, where the outer electrode is made of copper pipe and the inner electrode is
a stainless steel stick. The radii of the outer and inner
electrodes are b = 1.165 cm and a = 0.35 cm, respectively, which corresponds to the aspect ratio a/b = 0.3.
The measured temperature of the furnace varies from Tg
= 300K to 1300K. The breakdown voltages in several
gases are measured in terms of the gas temperature Tg at
the atmospheric pressure, by changing the electric field
polarity.
The closed dots in Figs. 3-5 represent the experimental data of the breakdown voltage for the ratio a/b = 0.3.
The square dots are the data measured for the anode at
the inner electrode and the circular dots are for the cathode at the inner electrode. For comparison of the theoret-
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IV. CONCLUSIONS
The influence of gas temperature on electrical breakdown properties was investigated in this article for cylindrical electrode systems. A theoretical model of the electrical breakdown in a cylindrical electrode system was
briefly summarized in Sec. II, by making use of Paschens
law. The breakdown voltage increases, reaches its peak
and decreases, as the aspect ratio a/b increases from 0.01
to unity. Experimental investigation of the breakdown
voltage was carried out in Sec. III for several different
gases. The experimental data agree remarkably well with
the theoretical predictions. The breakdown voltage V in
a high gas temperature Tg is given by V = (Tr /Tg )V0 .
Obviously, the breakdown voltage decreases as the gas
temperature Tg increases. The experimental data agree
well with the theoretical values. We, therefore, conclude
that the breakdown voltage is inversely proportional to
the gas temperature Tg as predicted from the theoretical
Equation (7).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Plasma & Fusion User
Development Program.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Masuda and H. Nakao, IEEE Trans. Ind Appl. 26, 374
(1990).
[2] J. S. Chang, P. A. Lawless and T. Yamamoto, IEEE
Trans. Plasma Sci. 19, 1152 (1991).
[3] M. Higashi, S. Uchda, N. Suzuki and K. Fujii, IEEE
Trans. Plasma Sci. 20, 1 (1992).
[4] T. Fujii, R. Gobbo and M. Rea, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl.
29, 98 (1993).
[5] H. S. Uhm, Phys. Plasmas 6, 623 (1999).
[6] R. S. Sigmond, J. Appl. Phys. 56, 1355 (1984).
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
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