Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) has been applied in many fields such as ozone synthesis, degradation of VOCs, plasma etching, surface modification, actuators, sterilization of medical devices, etc., and it has been attracting a great deal of attention of researchers in recent years. In order to find and control the features of DBDs, a lot of efforts have been devoted to their theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation. The advance in numerical simulation encouraged the development of DBD technology.
DBD is generally produced between two electrodes, which have several shapes such as parallel plate, concentric cylinder, and so on. Parallel plate electrodes are preferred as it not only makes it easy to produce large area plasma, but is also flexible and convenient for treating film-like materials or gases.
So far, finite element method (FEM) has been dominant in simulating DBD plasma. Despite the fact that FEM is well-defined and powerful for unstructured grid, it is essentially non-conservative and complicated. In order to avoid checkboard instability due to unstructured grids, special care is needed with its integrals.
In recent years, the LB method has been successfully applied to some hydrodynamic problems such as Navier–Stokes and advection–diffusion equations. It is based on the well-known Boltzmann equation rather than hydrodynamic equations. Unlike other methods, the LB method chases distribution of particles within each discretized node, which ensures that non-linearity is local and non-locality is linear. Although the LB method is more memory-sensitive and requires weak compressibility, it is preferred for simulating multicomponent flow in complex geometries such as porous media. Parallel computation is available in this method, which means it is faster than others. LB method is not only simple, but also relatively stable to implement. Its stability depends mainly on lattice velocity and advection velocity, which allows us to adjust only two parameters for stability.
Choe Yong Son, a researcher at the Faculty of Physical Engineering, applied a lattice Boltzmann (LB) D1Q3 scheme to the numerical simulation of multi-component plasma by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD).
DBD in atmospheric argon is generated in a small gap of 0.5mm between two parallel plate electrodes, and is driven by high voltage AC of about 20kHz.
In order to find the characteristics of the DBD plasma, he coupled the LB numerical model with continuity and Poisson equations. The simulation results showed that LB method can be used for simulation of DBD plasma.
For more information, please refer to his paper “One-dimensional lattice Boltzmann simulation of parallel plate dielectric barrier discharge plasma in atmospheric argon” in “Mathematics and Computers in Simulation” (SCI).
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