Development of an Acquisition System and Data Analysis for Measurements of Electron Transport Parameters in Gases / Desenvolvimento de sistema de aquisição e tratamento de dados para medidas de parâmetros de transporte de elétrons em gases

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2010

RESUMO

This thesis describes a pulsed Townsend experiment whose purpose was to obtain experimentally the transport parameters of electron in gases, particularly nitrogen and isobutane, within a range of reduced electric field between 130 Td and 210 Td. The transport parameters obtained were the average speed of center of mass of the electron cloud, the ionization rate and ionization coefficient (first Townsend coefficient). These quantities were obtained from the analysis of the electronic signal induced by electrons moving between two parallel plate electrodes. To perform this analysis, we developed a model that relates the dynamics of electrons in gaseous medium with the induced signal. This model allowed the deduction of an explicit function of time and parameters related to the physical parameters, which were estimated by fitting the function to the experimental results by the method of least squares. Besides the method of analysis, this paper describes a computer program especially designed to integrate the various processes of instrumental control and data acquisition. We performed several sets of measurements under the same conditions and verified the repeatability of results. The transport parameters in nitrogen reproduced the results of the literature and theoretical calculations within the error limits of the experimental results. In the case of isobutane, whose electron transport parameters have been poorly studied, it was found that the estimation of ionization coefficient agrees well with the literature results based on measurements in a range of higher reduced electric field.

ASSUNTO(S)

transport and kinetic theory teoria cinética instrumentação (física) electric discharge descarga elétrica instrumentation (physics)

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