Simulation of a 10 mm Diameter Cascaded Plasma Window

As a windowless vacuum device, the 10 mm diameter 60 mm long plasma window designed by Peking University only achieved to separate 28.8 kPa from 360 Pa experimentally with 50 A direct current and 2.5 kW power. Based on our 10 mm diameter plasma window, we have proposed a cascaded plasma window to achieve the isolation of atmosphere and high vacuum. In this paper, a numerical 2D FLUENT-based magneto-hydrodynamic simulation on 10 mm diameter cascaded plasma window was developed. The gas inlet, arc creation and plasma expansion segments are all contained in this model. A set of parameters including pressure, temperature, velocity and current distribution were obtained and analysed. In our first simulation, the isolation of 100 kPa and 50 Pa pressure has been realised, and some interesting phenomena occurred.