Influence of the Material Nature (Ag, Cu, Al, Fe, W, C) on the Arc Root Characteristics at the Cathode

M'Hammed Abbaoui (1) , A. Lefort (1) , Stéphane Clain (2)

1 LAEPT - Laboratoire arc électrique et plasmas thermiques
2 LMBP - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Blaise Pascal

This paper describes a thermo physical phenomena analysis about a silver, copper, aluminium, iron, tungsten or graphite electrode submitted to a high density energy flux. The thermal flux necessary to create a cathode spot is about 1.1012 Wm-2. For the studied metals and for values lower than 1.1011 Wm-2, the liquid phase does not appears and the entire energy coming at the cathode surface diffuses in the electrode. For values upper than 5.1012 Wm-2 a large part of the energy is used for the vaporization and the electrode vaporized length depends of the material nature. The gap situated between the two extreme values 1.1011 Wm-2 and 1.1013 Wm-2 corresponds to the cathode spot with liquid and vapour phases.

Mots clés: Arc root; material nature; cathode; spot; liquid-vapour phases

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

M'Hammed Abbaoui, A. Lefort, Stéphane Clain. Influence of the Material Nature (Ag, Cu, Al, Fe, W, C) on the Arc Root Characteristics at the Cathode. 2004, pp.233-236. ⟨hal-00019457⟩