Analysis of spatial discretization for electric arc simulations

The main focus of this work is to give an overview of the mathematical errors introduced by the spatial discretization in case of plasma simulations. Two standard models for the electric arc simulation have been used; a Free Burning Arc (FBA) and a Switching Arc (SA). Three radiation models have been studied for each arc model in order to verify how this factor influences the overall computation stability. For each of the models a variation of the mesh density has been performed. The results are analyzed and discussed by using standard methods developed for the quantification of the numerical error that appears in a simulation model due to the spatial discretization. All the simulations have been performed with the commercial solver Ansys CFX.