Internal dynamics of electrical discharges

Conference · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6719132

Kadish, A; Maier, II, W B ^[1]; Robiscoe, R T ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
2. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (USA)

The existence of thresholds for electrical discharge onset suggests a functional relation between macroscopic resistivity and current. At low current, the resistivity should be inversely proportional to the magnitude of the current. Macroscopic models which employ this scaling predict many empirically observed properties of transient electrical discharges, such as (1) thresholds for onset of current, (2) abrupt termination of current in active regions of a current channel, (3) current restart in passive regions of current channels, (4) leaders, and (5) residual charge, both in channels and at sources when current terminates. We present an overview of research with these models and use examples to illustrate the results that have been obtained. We also show how these models predict current channel formation and describe results of efforts to benchmark theory with experimental data. 12 refs., 9 figs.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOD
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6719132
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-90-2092; CONF-9009192-1; ON: DE90013161
• Resource Relation: Conference: Discharges and electrical insulation in vacuum, Santa Fe, NM (USA), 17-20 Sep 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
42 ENGINEERING
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
BENCHMARKS
BREAKDOWN
CURRENT DENSITY
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
FLASHOVER
LOSSES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
PLASMA
PULSES
SUBSTRATES
TESTING
TRANSIENTS
VARIATIONS
WAVE FORMS
WAVE PROPAGATION
CURRENTS
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
MATERIALS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
640302* - Atomic
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426000 - Engineering- Components
Electron Devices & Circuits- (1990-)
656002 - Condensed Matter Physics- General Techniques in Condensed Matter- (1987-)