ANALYSIS OF HEAT-TRANSFER TO A SPHERICAL-PARTICLE FROM CONTINUUM PLASMA

A continuum model is developed to analyze the heat transfer to a solid particle from continuum plasma. A spherical particle introduced in a quiescent collision-dominated weakly ionized gas is considered. At steady state, the particle is negatively charged at the floating potential with the flux of ions and the flux of electrons to the particle being equal. A set of continuum conservation equations for ion and electron temperature and densities are solved with Poisson's equation for the self-consistent electric field. The variation of ion and electron densities and temperatures is numerically calculated in the entire domain. Thermal ionization and recombination is incorporated in the model. The heat transport to the particle due to the flux of ions and electrons is determined. The results indicate that a thin charge sheath is present near the particle surface with steep gradients in electron and ion number densities. Particle charging significantly affects the amount of heat transferred from the plasma to the particle. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.