Numerical simulation of temperature and velocity fields in plasma spray

Abstract

Based on the turbulence jet model, with respect to Ar-He mixture plasma gas injecting to ambient atmosphere, the temperature filed and velocity field under typical working conditions were investigated. Given the conditions of I=900 A, F_Ar = 1.98 m³/h, F_He = 0.85 m³/h, it is found that both the temperature and the velocity undergo a plateau region near the nozzle exit (0–10 mm) at the very first stage, then decrease abruptly from initial 13 543 K and 778.2 m/s to 4 000 K and 260.0 m/s, and finally decrease slowly again. Meanwhile, the radial temperature and radial velocity change relatively slow. The inner mechanism for such phenomena is due to the complex violent interaction between the high-temperature and high-velocity turbulent plasma jet and the ambient atmosphere. Compared with traditional methods, the initial working conditions can be directly related to the temperature and velocity fields of the plasma jet by deriving basic boundary conditions.

Keywords

plasma spray / plasma jet / temperature field / velocity field