Abstract
Experimental data are presented concerning the drag force on a stationary phere exposed to an argon plasma flow with temperatures about 104 K and velocities about 102 m/s. A novel probe construction has been employed in the drag measurements in order to exclude the effect of the supporting wire on the sphere drag data. By using the new probe construction with a compensating wire, drag forces on an individual steel sphere in the plasma flow have been measured and compared with those obtained by using the probe construction ernployed by a few previous authors. Experimental results show that the measured drag forces are always less than their counterparts obtained from the standard sphere-drag curve under isothermal flow conditions with the same Reynolds numbers based on the oncoming plasma properties. The drag force on a sphere increases only slightly with the increasing surface temperature of the sphere before it melts. Appreciable diference was found between the experimental data and the predicted results of the available expressions for drag on a sphere exposed to a thermal plasma flow. Further research effort is required to build a more suitable drag correlation.
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Abbreviations
- C D :
-
drag coefficient defined in Eq. (5) based on the oncoming plasma properties
- d :
-
sphere diameter
- f(Re):
-
function expressing the standard drag curve of a sphere in roomtemperature fluids or the sphere drag coefficient as a function of the Reynolds number
- F :
-
drag force on the individual sphere
- f 1 f 2 :
-
drag forces measured by using the probe in Fig. 1
- F 1,F 2 :
-
drag forces measured by using the novel probe in Fig. 2
- k :
-
thermal conductivity
- Re:
-
Reynolds number
- T :
-
temperature
- μ:
-
dynamic viscosity
- ν:
-
kinematic viscosity
- ϱ:
-
gas density
- ∞:
-
plasma flow
- eff:
-
effective value
- f :
-
film temperature
- 0:
-
reference state
- w :
-
sphere surface
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Chen, X., Qiu, Jy. & Yang, J. An experimental study of the drag force on a sphere exposed to an argon thermal plasma flow. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 11, 151–168 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01447038
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01447038