Thermophysical properties of nitrogen plasmas under thermal equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions

Calculated thermophysical properties of nitrogen plasmas in and out of thermal equilibrium are presented. The cut-off of the partition functions due to the lowering of the ionization potential has been taken into account, together with the contributions from different core excited electronic states. The species composition and thermodynamic properties are determined numerically using the Newton-Raphson iterative method, taking into account the corrections due to Coulomb interactions. The transport properties including diffusion coefficient, viscosity, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity are calculated using the most recent collision interaction potentials by adopting Devoto's electron and heavy particle decoupling approach, expanded to the third-order approximation (second-order for viscosity) in the framework of Chapman-Enskog method. Results are presented in the pressure range of 0.1 atm-10 atm and in electron temperature range from 300 to 40 000 K, with the ratio of electron temperature to heavy-particle temperature varied from 1 to 20. Results are compared with those from previous works, and the influences of different definitions of the Debye length are discussed. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3657426]