Atmospheric pressure argon plasma jet using a cylindrical piezoelectric transformer

Abstract

A low-voltage atmospheric pressure nonthermal argon plasma jet using a circular piezoelectric transducer is proposed. An Ar plasma flame is generated at an input voltage of 87 V. The consumed power is 2 W. The electrical and optical properties of the jet are analyzed. In particular, the transient Ar discharge ignition and evolution including the so-called plasma bullet phenomenon is examined temporally resolved with the aid of a fast camera. It is found that four discharge phases can be identified, designated as ignition, extension, self-propagation, and attenuation. The plasma bullet is launched while the electric field in the discharge space is decreasing. The average bullet velocity is 23 km/s.

Experimental analysis of piezoelectric plasma discharge generator

“…The electrical diagram is composed of parallel components on the primary side, a serial RLC branch corresponding to the mechanical resonant equivalent behavior and an ideal conversion ratio Ψ. The superscript (1) indicates that the elements correspond to the first longitudinal vibratory mode. Because there is no charge and considering the lack of the secondary electrode or probe measurement, the output voltage v S becomes a fictive quantity describing the maximum electric potential surface on the secondary side.…”

“…A remarkable demonstration is the atmospheric pressure argon plasma jet using a cylindrical piezoelectric transformer realized by Kim et al [1]. The obtained plasma discharge is a DBD (Dielectric Barrier Discharge), leading to the formation of plasma "bullets" in the argon flow passing through the cylindrical transformer.…”

Acoustic Radiation of a Cylindrical Piezoelectric Power Transformer

“…Since their first discovery in 1880, piezoelectric materials have attracted intensive attention and have found numerous applications in sensors/actuators, energy harvesters, energy transformers, photoacoustic tomography, noise shielding systems, and atmospheric pressure argon plasma jets [1][2][3][4][5][6], etc. Among these applications, power transformers always exploit piezoelectric transducers to generate acoustic waves propagating through a sealed metal wall for transmitting a small amount of power to the electronic devices on the other side of the metal wall, such as nuclear waste containers, gas cylinders, vacuum chambers, and pipelines [7][8][9][10], etc.…”

Simulation of piezoelectric plasma micro-thruster

“…Recently, plasma sources have integrated PTs into their design to generate electric fields necessary to ionize gas. Plasma sources with integrated PTs have been investigated for driving dielectric barrier discharges [10], atmospheric pressure plasma jets [11], atmospheric plasma sources [12] and plasma sources for propulsion [13].…”