Computational Investigation of the Influence of Gravitational Convection on the Gaseous Mixture Parameters of the Barrier Discharge Xecl Excilamp

Calculations have been performed of the influence of gravitational convection on the thermodynamic parameters of the gaseous mixture of the barrier discharge (BD) XeCl excilamp. It has been shown that the presence of convection leads to a three-to-fivefold decrease in the average temperature of the gaseous mixture in the discharge region. Analysis of the experiments carried out for the BD XeCl excilamp has been performed, and the temperature and convection rate distributions of the gaseous mixture have been determined. It has been shown that the decrease in the ultraviolet radiation power of the excilamp in the absence of convection is due to the increase in the gaseous mixture temperature to above 400 K, which corresponds to a total discharge power of ~45 W and a heat power of ~2 W.