Drag on a metallic or nonmetallic particle exposed to a rarefied plasma flow

Drag force on a metallic or nonmetallic spherical particle exposed to a plasma flow is studied for the extreme case of a free-molecule regime. Analytical expressions are derived for the drag components due to, respectively, atoms, ions, and electrons and for the total drag on the whole sphere due to all the gas species. It has been shown that the drag is proportional to the square of the particle radius or the drag coefficient is independent of the particle radius. At low gas temperatures with a negligible degree of ionization, the drag is caused mainly by atoms and could be predicted by using the well-known drag expression given in ordinary-temperature rarefied gas dynamics. On the other hand, the drag is caused mainly by ions at high plasma temperatures with a great degree of ionization. The contribution of electrons to the total drag is always negligible. Ignoring gas ionization at high plasma temperatures would overestimate the particle drag. There is a little difference between metallic and nonmetallic spheres in their total drag forces, with a slightly higher value for a metallic sphere at high plasma temperatures, but usually such a small difference could be neglected in engineering calculations. The drag increases rapidly with increasing gas pressure or oncoming speed ratio. For a two-temperature plasma, the drag increases at low electron temperatures but decreases at high electron temperatures with the increase in the electron/heavy-particle temperature ratio.Nomenclature C _d Drag coefficient - e Elementary charge - f _D,F _D Local and total drag (N/m ² andN) - f ^– Velocity distribution function for incident gas particles - f ⁺ Velocity distribution function for reflected gas particles - k Boltzmann's constant - m Gas particle mass (kg) - n Number density of gas species (m ^–3) - P ^–,P ⁺ Surface pressure due to incident and reflected gas particles - R ₀ Sphere radius (m) - S Speed ratio,S _j=U/(2kT _j/m_j)^1/2 - T _e,T _h Electron and heavy-particle (atom, ion) temperature - T _w Wall temperature - U Oncoming plasma flow velocity - v _x, v_y, v_z Velocity components of gas particles in thex, y, andz directions (m/sec) - v Thermal motion speed of gas particles,v _j =(8kT _j /m _j )^1/2 - v _ze Smallestv _z of electrons which could reach the sphere surface,v _ze=(2e/m _e)^1/2 (m/sec) - v _zw Value ofv _z of ions or electrons as arriving at the sphere surface (m/sec) - Center angle - Gas density (kg/m³) - Shear stress (N/m²) - Absolute value of the floating potential (V) - , Local and total particle fluxes incident to the surface - a Atoms - e Electrons - h Heavy particles - i Ions - j jth gas species - m Metallic sphere - mn Nonmetallic sphere A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Eighth International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry held in Tokyo, September 1987.