Modeling of reactive kinetics in the metal surface contaminant cleaning using atmospheric pressure plasma arc

Atmospheric pressure plasma arc (APPA) cleaning is a newly developed method of metal surface cleaning. In this paper, a mathematical model of reactive kinetics in the metal surface contaminant cleaning using APPA has been developed. Based on the analysis of APPA cleaning mechanism and the feature of cleaning interface, a governing equation was established with heat transfer equation and energy conservation on the moving interface. Using fourth-order Rounge–Kutta method, above equation was solved and removal percentages of the cleaning contaminant at different time were obtained. In virtue of reactive kinetics theory, a reactive kinetics model of metal surface cleaning using APPA was established on the base of above calculation results. Afterwards, reactive kinetics parameters such as activation energy and pre-exponential factor were calculated. Cleaning lubricant was taken as an example, the results indicated that predictive values of lubricant removal percentages gotten from this established reactive kinetics model show good consistent with experimental data at the same time. Furthermore, the ambient temperature on the cleaning lubricant surface affects the removal rate strongly. The removal rate increases with the increase of the ambient temperature. To avoid the damage of metal substrate surface because of higher temperature and ensure the removal rate of the lubricant, the appropriate temperature which lies between the lubricant decomposition temperature and damage temperature of metal substrate under given calculation conditions should be determined.