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Various electrodynamic models of a combustion chamber, in which an initiated subcritical streamer discharge is used to ignite a combustible mixture, are considered. To localize the discharge in the working chamber, discharge initiators are used based on half-wave electromagnetic vibrators with resonant properties. The dependences of the structure of the electric fields that form the discharge on the geometric parameters of the discharge initiator are obtained on the basis of numerical calculations, and the issues of matching the chamber with the radiation generator are considered. Comparison of the calculation options for different positions of the initiator of the discharge in relation to the optical centreline of the camera. Possibilities for further enhancement of the field in the working zone at the poles of the microwave discharge initiator, which is required for the formation of discharges with a developed streamer structure at elevated gas pressures in the combustion chamber, are discussed. The ways of increasing the resulting electromagnetic field in the area of vibrators for the formation of discharges with a volumetric structure have been determined. Keywords: microwave radiation, streamer discharge, electrodynamic model, plasma combustion, combustion chamber.

The influence of the screen size on the air breakdown by an induced subcritical streamer discharge is discussed based on the data of physical and computational experiments. A cylindrical metal vibrator mounted at a certain distance from the screen is used to initiate a streamer discharge. The initiator length is comparable with the half wavelength of electromagnetic field. Data on the effect of the distance from the emitting aperture to the screen and its width on the breakdown pressure are given. The dependence of the field amplification factor at the poles of a linear vibrator on the size of the reflector screen is obtained. Keywords: breakdown, streamer discharge, microwave discharge, plasma-assisted combustion.