Solutions for Numerical Instability and Pseudo Diffusion Problems in Modeling of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Based on Finite Element Method

The standard Galerkin finite element method (FEM) is widely used in commercial plasma modeling software. The numerical instability and pseudo diffusion have long been a problem restricting the accuracy of the model. A corrected COMSOL Multiphysics plasma model was constructed for the pin-to-plane discharge case. The main improvement was the introduction of artificial stabilization. The proposed method was validated by a classical avalanche-to-streamer benchmark and by experimental results of an over voltage discharge. The results show that, the corrected FEM model can effectively overcome the problem of numerical instability and pseudo diffusion, and ensure the accuracy and repeatability of the numerical simulation of plasma discharge.