Combined diffusion coefficients for a mixture of three ionized gases

The combined diffusion coefficient method has been demonstrated to greatly simplify the treatment of diffusion in the modelling of thermal plasmas in gas mixtures without loss of accuracy. In this paper, an extension of this method to allow treatment of diffusion of a three-gas mixture has been achieved, provided that the gases are homonuclear and do not react with each other, and satisfy local chemical equilibrium. Formulas for the combined diffusion coefficients are presented, and combined diffusion coefficients for different mixtures of helium, argon and carbon at temperatures up to 30 000 K and at atmosphere pressure are calculated as an example.