Impact of Aerosol on Transport Coefficients of Air Thermal Plasmas in Circuit Breakers

In West Africa, aerosols come from the desert and biomass fires. They are mainly composed of oxides of silicon, calcium, iron, aluminium and carbon. The air circuit breakers may have abnormal behaviour and failures of cuts when they operate in an environment polluted by aerosols. This study focuses on the influence of aerosols on the transport properties of air plasma at atmospheric pressure and local thermodynamic equilibrium between 4000 K and 20000 K. ChapmanEnskog method is used to calculate the transport coefficients. The results show that the dynamical viscosities and the thermal conductivity decrease with aerosol rate. The electrical conductivity increases.