Numerical simulation of a 2 kA convection-stabilized nitrogen arc using CFD tools

A physical model for the computation of convection-stabilized circuit-breaker arcs is presented. The compressible Euler equations have been used as the basic flow model and have been coupled with a two-dimensional arc model to account for the ohmic heating and radiation transport. The governing equations are discretized following a control-volume method for unstructured triangular grids and the fluxes are evaluated using Roe's approximate Riemann solver. This computational fluid-dynamics model is used for the numerical investigation of an axially blown nitrogen arc in a supersonic nozzle and the results are compared with previous numerical results and experimental data.