Plasma-Fluid Energy Transfers in Plasma Assisted Ignition

A three-dimensional model of plasma-fluid coupling is developed, including the Navier-Stokes, the drift-diffusion, and the radiative transfer equations, to investigate the energy transfers between plasma and fluid in repetitive-pulsed discharge ignition. A modal decomposition of the energy transfer is performed to determine the contributions of plasma to the mechanical coupling and pressure losses during ignition. The detailed model is validated against experiments and compared against a well-known empirical approximation. The main findings are that the modal coupling is dependent on the geometry of the electrodes and flat electrodes provide the strongest mechanical transfer into the acoustic modes. Uniform flow conditions decrease the extent of the mechanical coupling due to the decreased pressure velocity correlations in shear flows. Water vapor production reduces the entropic mode of the energy coupling.