Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Mauritius, 11-13 July, 2011.
Interest in microcavities containing plasmas is growing
rapidly due to the number of high-technology applications:
such as active flow control, spacecraft propulsion, controlled
combustion and pollution control. The present paper discusses a
self-consistent model for gas and charged and species dynamics
in atmospheric microcavities. A self-consistent and timedependant
model is described and applied with emphasis on
terms involved in the close coupling among the fluid, the
charged species and the electric field. The microplasmas are
studied from an initial cloud until the stages of charged particle
over-amplification and breakdown in small-spaces, where
transients are particularly important. The importance of surface
effects (namely secondary emission of charged particles from
the electrodes) is compared in terms of spatial and temporal
evolution of the plasma and fluid dynamics. Heating effects and
gas depletion initiation are observed, highlighting the close
interaction between neutral gas and charged species in
governing the evolution of the microplasma.
