Study of heat transfer from an impinging jet to a substrate

Abstract

A high-temperature argon-hydrogen plasma jet issuing into ambient air and impinging on a flat circular steel substrate was modeled using a commercial CFD software. Plasma was represented as an ideal gas with temperature-dependent thermodynamic and transport properties. The flow was governed by steady-state compressible Navier-Stokes equations with axisymmetry. Turbulence was modeled using the k -[varepsilon] model. Chemical reactions and electromagnetic fields were not considered in this study. Two different cases were carried out: adiabatic and isothermal substrates. The recovery temperature and Nusselt number along the radial distance on the substrate were obtained for various Reynolds numbers. It is seen that radiation and air entrainment are equally important phenomena affecting the temperature distribution in a plasma jet issuing into ambient air and the subsequent heat transfer to the substrate.