Characterization of electrical breakdown for low and high pressure hydrogen gas in coaxial virtual cathode device

Abstract EN

The DC gas discharge is established between coaxial cylindrical stainless steel electrodes.

The coaxial cylindrical DC discharge device consists of an outer grid cathode and inner rods anode with 4 mm gap between them.

This experimental study is focused on the effect of gas pressure and electric field strength on breakdown voltage.

There is a balance between the electron attachment and first ionization collision, so the Second Townsend emission is the responsible for maintain the discharge.

The I-V characteristic curves for different pressures of hydrogen gas indicate that the highest current appears for the highest gas pressure.

The gas breakdown voltage varies as a product of Pd and Townsend’s coefficients depends on gas pressure and E/P, where E is the electric field and P is the gas pressure