Numerical simulations of plasma behaviour for different swirl angles of cut gas in plasma cutting torch

Plasma arc cutting technology has wide range of applications in diverse fields including non engineering sectors. The research on plasma arc cutting was limited due to the ambiguity involved in it, but now it has been increased substantially. This work is focused on the study of swirl produced by swirler or baffles inside the plasma cutting torch. The swirling action produced in plasma cutting torch has predominant effect over the cut quality and the life of the consumables being used. In this paper, the effects of injection of plasma gas at different swirl angles are studied. The injection angles of 30°, 45° and 60° through swirler are considered for this numerical analysis. The numerical simulations of plasma behavior are carried out by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT. A 2D axisymmetric model of plasma torch is considered for the analysis. A computer programming was developed with assumptions for inputs, to simulate the plasma jet generated from plasma torch. A comparison is made for the output plasma variable profiles of pressure, velocity, swirl velocity and temperature for different swirl angles.