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The plasma produced due to streamers guided by a dielectric tube and a helium jet in atmospheric air is herein studied electrically and optically. Helium streamers are produced inside the dielectric tube of a coaxial dielectric-barrier discharge and, upon exiting the tube, they propagate into the helium jet in air. The axisymmetric velocity field of the neutral helium gas while it penetrates the air is approximated with the PISO algorithm. At the present working conditions, turbulence helium flow is avoided. The system is driven by sinusoidal high voltage of variable amplitude (0–11 kV peak-to-peak) and frequency (5–20 kHz). It is clearly shown that a prerequisite for streamer development is a continuous flow of helium, independently of the sustainment or not of the dielectric-barrier discharge. A parametric study is carried out by scanning the range of the operating parameters of the system and the optimal operational window for the longest propagation path of the streamers in air is determined. For this optimum, the streamer current impulses and the spatiotemporal progress of the streamer UV-visible emission are recorded. The streamer mean propagation velocity is as well measured. The formation of copious reactive emissive species is then considered (in terms of intensity and rotational temperatures), and their evolution along the streamer propagation path is mapped. The main claims of the present work contribute to the better understanding of the physicochemical features of similar systems that are currently applied to various interdisciplinary engineering fields, including biomedicine and material processing.

In the present work, a capillary dielectric-barrier discharge of the coaxial electrode configuration, commonly employed to atmospheric-pressure cold plasma jet production, is studied in terms of thermal effects. The discharge is driven by sinusoidal high voltage in the kHz range and operates with helium gas channeled into a capillary dielectric tube having one end opened to the atmospheric air. The voltage amplitude and frequency, gas flow rate, and discharge volume are varied independently, and thermal effects are investigated by experimentally acquired results coupled with numerically determined data. The experiments refer to electrical power measurements, time-resolved temperature measurements, infrared imaging, and high resolution optical emission spectroscopy. The numerical modelling incorporates an electro-hydrodynamic force in the governing equations to take into account the helium-air interplay and uses conjugate heat transfer analysis. The comparison between experimental and numerical data shows that power is principally consumed in the dielectric barrier-helium interface resulting in the dielectric heating. A linear relation between steady state temperatures and supplied power, independent of the designing and operating conditions, is experimentally established. However, the gas flow rate affects the thermal effects differently compared to the other parameters, supporting the idea of a twofold nature of these systems, i.e., electrical and hydrodynamic. The main claim states the possibility of correlating (both experimentally and numerically) designing and operating parameters for evaluating heat distribution and gas temperature in capillary dielectric-barrier discharges used for plasma jet production. This is of high importance for processing temperature-sensitive materials, including bio-specimens.

The laminar incompressible fully developed biomagnetic (blood) flow in a curved square duct under the influence of an applied magnetic field is studied. The mathematical formulation is based on the model of biomagnetic fluid dynamics which is consistent with the principles of ferrohydrodynamics. According to this formulation blood is considered as an electrically nonconducting, homogeneous, and Newtonian magnetic fluid. For the numerical solution of the problem, which is described by a coupled, nonlinear system of partial differential equations, with their appropriate boundary conditions, the SIMPLE method is used. The results indicate that the axial velocity as well as the secondary flow at the transverse plane are appreciably influenced and indicate that the magnetic field could be used for controlling the blood flow by magnetic means.

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