Ab initio Dielectronic recombination rate coefficients for highly-charged Ar-like ions

•We have made a comprehensive ab initio study on dielectronic recombination (DR) for 19 highly-charged Ar-like ions with Z = 23–92.•Total ab initio DR rate coefficients initially from the metastable state, which could have significant relative population in plasmas and in the stored ion beam, of the Ar-like ions have also been reported.•Several physical effects, including configuration interaction (CI) and the decays from the resonances toward low-lying autoionizing levels followed possibly by radiative cascade (DAC) effects, are considered in the present ab initio study.•A comprehensive and detailed comparisons of present DR results with both previous theoretical and experimental results have been made.