Multiphysics Community Meeting

Simulation of Electric Arcs

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Event Description

Electric arcs are characterized as a bright light source which is due to electrical current through a normally nonconductive medium such as air. Their physical nature is a thermal plasma at ambient pressure and temperatures on the order of 10kK, initiated by dielectric breakdown or drawn from separating electrode while current is flowing; of particular engineering interest are circuit breakers, which are a safety device to protect electrical circuits from damage caused by overcurrent.

Numerical simulations of electric arcs require a coupled solution of compressible gas dynamics and electromagnetic fields in complex geometries, including radiative heat transfer, rigid body motion, mesh morphing and/or robust remeshing, models for arc root voltage drop, evaporation and ablation, chemical reactions, structural mechanics at fast time scales, and so on.

In this webinar, we shed light on aspects in the simulation process with a focus on modeling of radiative heat transfer.

About this event

This event is being hosted by the NAFEMS Multiphysics Working Group (MPWG). The MPWG has formed an online Community to enable NAFEMS members to learn more and interact with other engineers and scientists who have an interest in Multiphysics analysis . For more information and to get involved go to the Multiphysics Community webpage.

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View the recording here View the presentation here

Note: The recording is only available to NAFEMS members.

About the presenter

Roman Fuchs

Roman Fuchs is a research Scientist with the Institute for Energy Technology at OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences for more than 10 years. He has specialized in electric arc simulations in his doctoral thesis at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Roman continues working on this fascinating topic in industry collaborations and research projects, for instance in the design of DC circuit breakers for electric vehicles and high voltage circuit breakers for power networks. Roman is Course Leader of CAS in Computational Fluid Dynamics at OST.