Effect of oxygen impurities on atmospheric-pressure surface streamer discharge in argon for large gap arc breakdown

We report the results of a computational study that investigates the effect of impurities (molecular oxygen) on the development of argon surface streamers at atmospheric-pressure conditions. A continuous surface streamer has been proposed as a low-voltage mechanism to generate a conductive bridge for arc breakdown of a large interelectrode gap at high pressures. The streamer discharge model is based on the self-consistent, multispecies, continuum description of the plasma. Below a threshold voltage, no streamer discharge is observed and charge is localized only in the vicinity of the anode in the form of a localized corona. Above this voltage threshold in pure argon, a continuous conductive streamer successfully bridges the gap between two electrodes indicating high probability of transition to the arc. For small oxygen impurities (less than 5%), the threshold voltage is found to decrease by a few hundred volts compared to the threshold voltage in pure argon while the streamer induction time increases. No noticeable changes in the streamer conductivity is obtained for low impurities of oxygen in the above range. An increase of the oxygen density above the 5% impurity level causes a significant decrease in the continuous streamer conductivity and leads to a decrease in the probability of transition to arc. Published by AIP Publishing.