Characterization of rotational gliding arc plasma with an improved global model and trajectory tracking scheme

Abstract The application of gliding arc plasma in ignition and combustion enhancement is becoming increasingly widespread, but the evolution of its parameters during the non-equilibrium stage remains poorly understood. Numerical simulation is a crucial tool for elucidating mechanisms and supporting designs. However, the highly disordered nature of gliding arc trajectories and strong thermochemical coupling pose significant challenges for modeling. In this work, a trajectory-informed zero-dimensional gliding arc model is developed, which incorporates trajectory inversion to extract characteristic parameters and accounts for mass and heat transfer dynamics, enabling more accurate simulation of arc’s transient evolution compared with existing models. Computational results indicate that the length of the gliding arc varies approximately linearly with time. The thermal loss of the gliding arc primarily originates from mass transfer rather than heat transfer, and vibrational energy is the primary heat source. For the air gliding arc, the gas temperature decreases from around 3600 K to around 500 K during the elongation process, while the mole fraction of atomic O drops from 3% to 0.1%. Approximately 23%–35% of the total energy is used for gas heating. This model can be further simplified into a surrogate model for application in computational fluid dynamics simulations.