Electrical Characteristics of an Alternating Current Plasma Igniter in Airflow

The electrical characteristics of an alternating current (AC) plasma igniter were investigated for a working gas of air at atmospheric pressure. The discharge voltage and current were measured in air in both breakdown and stable combustion processes, respectively, and the current-zero phenomena, voltage-current (V -I) characteristics were studied for different working gas flow rates. The results indicated that the working gas between anode and cathode could be ionized to generate gas discharge when the voltage reached 8 kV, and the maximum current was 33.36 A. When the current came to zero, current-zero phenomena appeared with duration of 2 µs. At the current-zero moment, dynamic resistance between electrodes became extremely high, and the maximum value could reach 445 k?, which was the main factor to restrain the current. With increasing working gas flow rates, the gradient of V -I characteristic curves was increased, as was the dynamic resistance. At a constant driven power, the discharge voltage increased.