Plasma Assisted Combustion

This report results from a contract tasking Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology as follows The contractor will investigate the use of high voltage, nano-second plasma discharges to ignite and efficiently combust fuelair mixtures in high speed flows. This strongly nonequilibrium low-temperature plasma has a high mean energy of electrons and will provide a source of reactive atoms, radicals, and excited molecules which has been shown to enhance ignition and combustion. The short duration of the pulses results in relatively low power requirements for generating the discharge. The goal is to demonstrate and understand the physics of energy exchange, ignition and combustion . Also, the use of this type of plasma for aerodynamic flow control will be investigated. Finally, applicability to use this type of discharge to directly initiate a detonation wave will be investigated.