Thermodynamic and transport properties of Ar thermal plasmas with polymer ablated vapors at atmospheric pressure were calculated in temperature range up to 30 000 K on the assumption of thermal equilibrium condition. The polymers such as POM (polyoxymethylene), PE (polyethylene) and PMMA (polymethlmethacrylate) are being used in low-voltage circuit breakers or load-break switches as an insulation material and a wall material of arc quenching chamber. These polymers are ablated into the arc plasma during the arc interruption processes in the circuit breakers. The thermodynamic and transport properties are indispensable for the prediction of arc or thermal plasma simulation. The first order approximation of Chapman-Enskog method was adopted to derive the transport properties. The calculated thermodynamic and the transport properties were used to compute the temperature distributions of Ar induction thermal plasmas to investigate influence of the polymer ablated vapors on the thermal plasma temperature. It can be found out that PMMA vapor inclusion into Ar thermal plasmas decreases the thermal plasma temperature markedly compared with those of POM and PE, which indicates that the PMMA vapor has a higher plasma-quenching efficiency.
Influence of POM (polyoxymethylene), PE (polyethylene) and PMMA (polymethylmethacrylate) polymer solid powder injections on thermal plasmas was experimentally investigated for the fundamental study of ablation phenomena in a circuit breaker. For this purpose, the inductively coupled thermal plasma (ICTP) technique was used to sustain Ar thermal plasmas at atmospheric pressure at a high-power of 80 kW. Spectroscopic observation was carried out to measure the radiation intensity of Ar I, H I and C I lines emitted from the thermal plasma. The excitation temperature of Ar atom was estimated from the relative ratio of the Ar spectral line intensities. The temperature around the center axis was found to decrease by the injection of polymer solid powders. The estimation method of polymer vapor concentrations in thermal plasmas was developed using the calculated emission coefficient ratios of the specified spectral lines. The radial distribution of polymer vapor concentrations was evaluated on the assumption of local thermal equilibrium. From the results, it was found that the polymer vapor was about 0.5-1.0% in the experiments, and that PMMA vapor seemed to have a higher plasma cooling efficiency than PE and POM.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.