Thermodynamic Properties of Pure and Mixed Thermal Plasmas Over a Wide Range of Temperature and Pressure

Abstract

Chemical composition and thermodynamics properties of different thermal plasmas are calculated in a wide range of temperatures (300–100,000 K) and pressures (10−6–100 atm). The calculation is performed in dissociation and ionization temperature ranges using statistical thermodynamic modeling. The thermodynamic properties considered in this study are enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs free energy, specific heat at constant pressure, specific heat ratio, speed of sound, mean molar mass, and degree of ionization. The calculations have been done for seven pure plasmas such as hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, and argon. In this study, the Debye–Huckel cutoff criterion in conjunction with the Griem’s self-consistent model is applied for terminating the electronic partition function series and to calculate the reduction of the ionization potential. The Rydberg and Ritz extrapolation laws have been used for energy levels which are not observed in tabulated data. Two different methods called complete chemical equilibrium and progressive methods are presented to find the composition of available species. The calculated pure plasma properties are then presented as functions of temperature and pressure, in terms of a new set of thermodynamically self-consistent correlations for efficient use in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. The results have been shown excellent agreement with literature. The results from pure plasmas as a reliable reference source in conjunction with an alternative method are then used to calculate the thermodynamic properties of any arbitrary plasma mixtures (mixed plasmas) having elemental atoms of H, He, C, N, O, Ne, and Ar in their chemical structure.