Session 7P - Plasma Applications and Plasma Technology.
POSTER session, Thursday morning, November 14
Exhibit Hall - Concourse Level, Adam's Mark
Experiments on the stability of atmospheric pressure arcs have been started at PPPL to understand and improve the performance of arc furnaces used for processing applications in metallurgy and hazardous waste treatment. Previous studies have suggested that the violent instabilities in such arcs may be due to kink modes (P. M. Bellan and J. W. Higley. IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci., 20:1026-1035, Dec. 1992.) \!\! ^, \!\! (Ben Bowman. Properties of arcs in DC furnaces. Electric Furnace Conference Proceedings, pages 111-120, 1994). A 30 kW, 500 Amp CW DC experimental arc furnace was constructed with a graphite cathode and a molten steel anode. The arc plasma is diagnosed with high-speed optical detectors, Hall probes, and voltage and current monitors. Preliminary results show an intermittent helical instability at \approx \! 1 kHz along with lower frequency turbulence. Fluctuation data under various operating conditions will be presented.