Radiative Energy Transfer Within a Nonisothermal Air Plasma

Abstract

The object of the present work is to study the mechanism of radiative heat transfer within a nonisothermal air plasma. The problem of an air plasma bounded by two parallel black boundaries, and within which there is a uniform heat source, is studied. Local thermodynamic equilibrium and linearized radiation are assumed. Centerline temperature results are presented for boundary temperatures of 5000 deg K, 10,000 deg K, and 15,000 deg K, and for densities from 10 times normal to 0.01 times normal density. The results show that for higher densities, the optically thin, optically thick, and differential approximation results differ significantly from the general solution over a large range of surface spacings.