Experiments on Gliding Discharge Configuration for Plasma-Assisted Combustion

Gliding discharges are of interest to be used to assist combustion processes, one reason being their ability to transit from the thermal arc mode to a nonthermal discharge mode. We report on experiments performed with a gliding discharge in a forced flow of ambient air to study the discharge mode and discharge behavior when the impedance of the discharge channel is matched to the inner impedance of the power source. Our discharge remained in the arc mode and a higher flow rate of the externally forced airflow gave better performance in terms of energy transfer to the discharge channel.