Investigation of the effects of flow field on the motion characteristics of a rotating gliding arc

Abstract Rotating gliding arc (RGA) enhances combustion characteristics via effectively expanding the ignition–extinction boundary of the combustor. This study presents the design of a tower-type RGA actuator, along with gliding arc discharge experiments and computational fluid dynamics simulations. A semiempirical formula is proposed to predict the motion characteristics of the steady arc gliding mode (A–G mode) RGA. At 101 kPa, with inlet flow rates ranging from 600 to 1600 l min −1 , the breakdown frequency, rotational angular velocity and arc height of the A–G mode RGA demonstrate exponential, logarithmic and linear growth patterns, respectively. The semiempirical formula enables prediction of the motion characteristics of RGA based on the structural parameters of the prototype swirler and the inlet airflow rate, with an average error of 7.2% and a maximum error <12%. This study offers technical support for the parametric design of RGA actuators.