Axisymmetric High Temperature Jet Behaviours Based on a Lattice Boltzmann Computational Method. Part I: Argon Plasma

This article aims to address the issue of simulating plasma-jet by using an innovative computational approach namely the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) from the point of view of extending the applications to simulating flows with temperature-dependent physical parameters. The work focuses on the phenomena occurring in plasma-jet that define the link between LBM lattice and physical lattice. High temperature dependence of the plasma parameters is considered. Argon characteristics fall into this category. This gas is one of the most ones used in plasma spraying. Complex thermal plasma jet phenomena and basis of classical methods in CFD (discretisation, stability condition, modeling…), in one side, and the simple scheme of the Boltzmann equation which is particularly adopted for simulating gases flows, in the other side, give us the possibility of taking out the dynamic and thermal characteristics of this complex flow. An important section on validation of this model includes details of available reference results is presented and discussed. It focuses mainly on the validation of our results with previous numerical and experimental results based on the centerline temperature and velocity profiles, its distributions over the computational domain and eventually the effect of the computational domain size. The jet width, the Gaussian radial profiles and the effects of inlet quantities are analyzed. A real spraying configuration is also examined. The quality of the results shows a great efficiency for the lattice Boltzmann method.