One-dimensional simulation of nitrogen dielectric barrier discharge driven by a quasi-pulsed power source and its comparison with experiments Original Research Article

Parallel-plate nitrogen dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) driven by a quasi-pulsed power source (60 kHz) is simulated using a fully-implicit 1D self-consistent fluid modeling code. Simulated discharged currents of gap distances (0.5, 0.7 and 1.0 mm) agree very well with measured data; while simulated discharged currents of wider gap distance (1.2 mm) fail to reproduce the measured data. It is found that the discharge mode is homogeneous Townsend-like for the former case; while it is filamentary-like for the latter case based on the experimental observation. These findings demonstrate that previous numerical studies showing mode transition by changing the gap distance may require further investigation.