Substantiation of the Two-Temperature Kinetic Model by Comparing Calculations within the Kinetic and Fluid Models of the Positive Column Plasma of a DC Oxygen Discharge

Results from kinetic and fluid simulations of the positive column plasma of a dc oxygen discharge are compared using commercial CFDRC software (http://www.cfdrc.com/̃cfdplasma), which enables one to perform numerical simulations in an arbitrary 3D geometry with the use of both the fluid equations for all the components (fluid model) and the kinetic equation for the electron energy distribution function (kinetic model). It is shown that, for both the local and nonlocal regimes of the formation of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF), the non-Maxwellian EEDF can satisfactorily be approximated by two groups of electrons. This allows one to take into account kinetic effects within the conventional fluid model in the simplest way by using the proposed two-temperature approximation of the nonequilibrium and nonlocal EEDF (2T fluid model).