Modeling of non-equilibrium argon-hydrogen induction plasmas under atmospheric pressure

Modeling of induction thermal plasmas has been performed to investigate chemically non-equilibrium effect for dissociation and ionization. Computations were carried out for argon-hydrogen plasmas under atmospheric pressure. The thermo fluid and concentration fields were obtained by solving of two-dimensional modeling. This formulation was presented using higher-order approximation of the Chapman-Enskog method for the estimation of transport properties. A deviation from the equilibrium model indicates that argon-hydrogen induction plasmas should be treated as non-equilibrium for dissociation and ionization near the torch wall. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.