Three-dimensional numerical simulation of physical field distribution of radio frequency thermal plasma

Abstract

Radio frequency (RF) thermal plasma involves abundant and complex physics. The understanding of the physical field distributions of the RF thermal plasma is helpful to its applications in industrial field. In this paper, an electro-thermal-magnetic-flow strong coupling mathematical and physical model of three-dimensional RF thermal plasma is established, the actual solenoid structure of the induction coil is considered, and a C++ code is developed for calculating the complex electromagnetic field in a customized version of the computational fluid dynamics commercial code FLUENT. The physical fields of RF thermal plasma, such as temperature field, flow field and electromagnetic field are studied. The electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and viscosity distribution of the plasma are investigated. The results show that the physical field distribution of RF thermal plasma has an important non-axisymmetric three-dimensional effect due to the actual shape of the non-axisymmetric induction coil structure. The plasma discharge presents an annular distribution with a certain deflection angle. The distribution of plasma flow field shows a non-axisymmetric electromagnetic pump effect which is different from that of the two-dimensional model. The results have great guiding significance for optimizing and controlling the RF thermal plasma in various application areas.