Study on Gas Discharge at Atmospheric Air by Numerical Method

The progress and characteristics of gas discharge is studied in this paper by numerical simulation. A program based on the FE-FCT method in its full two-dimension form is developed and employed for the solution of transport equations of charged species under the effect of space-charge electric field. Results of two-dimensional simulation of cylindrically symmetric streamers in air between Point-plane electrodes are presented. The formation and propagation of streamer is numerically observed. The electric field distribution, streamer speed, radius of streamer channel predicted by the model is in good agreement with experimental measurement. The influence of applied voltage on the streamer characteristic is also investigated.