Radiation emission and absorption in arc plasmas are important energy transfer processes. Exact calculations, though possible in principle, are usually impossible in practice because of the need to treat a large number of spectral lines and also the continuum radiation in the whole spectrum range. Recently, we have used an approximate method of partial characteristics to evaluate the radiation intensities, radiation fluxes and the divergence of radiation fluxes for SF6 arc plasma with cylindrical symmetry. In this paper, we have extended our calculations to argon arc plasmas for the plasma pressures of 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 MPa. We have calculated the coefficients of absorption for Ar plasmas at temperatures from 300 to 35 000 K, and have used these coefficients to calculate the partial characteristics. Both the continuum and the line spectra have been included in calculations. We have taken into account the radiative photo-recombination and bremsstrahlung for the continuous spectrum, and over 500 spectral lines for the discrete spectra.The method of partial characteristics has been applied to three-dimensional calculations of radiative heat transfer -i.e. radiation intensity, radiation flux and its divergence -in simplified temperature profiles. Conclusions have been made concerning validity and utilization of the method of partial characteristics in general gas dynamics problems.
Coefficients of absorptionPrediction of both radiation emission and absorption requires data of the continuum and the line spectra, respectively. The spectral coefficients of absorption (absorptivity) need to be calculated as a function of radiation frequency in the whole spectral range, from the infrared to the far ultraviolet region.Absorptivity is proportional to the concentration of the chemical species occurring in the plasma. In the present paper, the pure Ar plasma is assumed as a mixture of Ar atoms, Ar + , Ar ++ , Ar +++ , Ar ++++ ions and electrons, according to the Fig. 1. Concentrations of each species were taken from [1].Both line and continuum radiation were considered in calculations of absorption coefficients. Photorecombination radiation and 'bremsstrahlung' radiation contribute to the continuous spectrum. Semi-empirical formulae described in more detail in [2] were used for calculation of the continuum absorption coefficients.The absorptivity for each spectral line depends on the line shape. The fine multiplet structure and the lines overlapping should also be taken into account in