COUPLED ELECTRO-THERMAL-FLOW MODEL FOR VERY LONG ELECTRIC-ARCS

A mathematical model that couples the electrical potential in the are with the resulting thermal and flow: fields has been developed to desc ribe the behaviour of the are plasma in DC electric are furnace, The s et of conservation equations, along with a potential equation for the electric field, were solved using the PHOENICS software package, Key a spects of the modelling problem, necessary to achieve a stable and mea ningful numerical solution for the long DC electric are, are evaluated , These aspects involve convergence issues as well as the treatment of the nonlinearities. Particular attention was given to the selection a nd adjustment of several under-relaxation factors.