On the influence of ionization-recombination and radiative losses in thermal plasma modelling

The authors have investigated the influences of the ionization/recombination and the radiative energy loss on the particle and temp. distributions in a pure argon inductively coupled plasma. To calc. the flow and the temp. field an axi-sym. 2-temp. numerical fluid model has been used. Comparisons were made between results obtained by using different types of data for the effective ionization/recombination coeff. and for the radiative energy losses. Exptl. data and a hybrid collisional-radiative model were used for the effective ionization and recombination coeff. For the total radiative loss also exptl. data and a non-local thermal equil. model were applied. With the numerical fluid model it was possible to trace the effects of non-equil. aspects of ionization and recombination on the electron and heavy particle temp. and the electron d. profiles. The electron d. is the most suitable parameter to distinguish the different sets for the ionization/recombination coeff. and the radiative energy loss. [on SciFinder (R)