Theory of the Development of a Spark Discharge Channel

Description

Drabkina, S. I., Theory of the Development of a Spark Discharge Channel, Zhurnal ėksperimentalʹnoĭ i teoreticheskoĭ fiziki 21:4, 473-493 (1951). English translation from Russian.

English translation of landmark 1951 paper by S.I. Drabkina. This was the first computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model describing the growth of the spark channel in the development of the arc discharge. The theory was later tested against experiments and found to be accurate. The work is remarkable since it preceded the availability of digital computers. The author models pressure, density, and temperature distributions for the arc channel in its early stages and describes details of the shock front propagation and decay.