Boundary Conditions at the Walls with Thermionic Electron Emission in Two Temperature Modeling of "Thermal" Plasmas

Abstract

In this paper we propose new boundary conditions at the hot walls with thermionic electron emission for two-temperature thermal arc models. In the derived boundary conditions the walls are assumed to be made from refractory metals and that the erosion of the wall is small and, therefore, is not taken into account in the model. In these boundary conditions the plasma sheath formed at the electrode is considered as the interface between the plasma and the wall. The derived boundary conditions allow the calculation of the heat flux to the walls from the plasma and consequently the thermionic electron current that makes the two temperature thermal model self consistent.