Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 7
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2015-60500-2

Regular Article

Three dimensional dynamic study of a metal halide thallium iodine discharge plasma powered by a sinusoidal and square signal

¹ High School of Sciences and Technology of Hammam Sousse (ESSTHS) 4011 street Lamine Abassi, Department of Physics, University of Sousse, Tunisia
² Research Unit of Ionized Backgrounds and Reagents Studies (UEMIR), Preparatory Institute for Engineering Studies of Monastir (IPEIM), 5019 Kairouan street, University of Monastir, Tunisia

^a e-mail: benhamida_mbechir@yahoo.fr

Received: 3 September 2015
Received in final form: 15 October 2015
Published online: 14 January 2016

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamic of a metal halide thallium iodine discharge lamp fed by a sinusoidal and square power supply. For this, a chemical model under Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium conditions has been developed to compute the plasma composition and transport coefficients such as thermal conductivity, viscosity and electric conductivity. This is then coupled with a three-dimensional time-dependent code that solves the system of the mass, energy and momentum equations, as well as the Laplace equation for the plasma using Comsol Multiphysics with Matlab. After validation with the experimental results, this model was applied to analyze the influence of the key parameters on the discharge behavior such as frequency for an AC arc current and the atomic ratio for square arc-current wave form on the convective process.