A Study of Particle Collisions in Electric Propulsion Plasma Plumes

Abstract

All numerical simulations have some inherent error associated with the results but minimizing the error may also maximize the processing time of the simulation. The particle collision model used for this paper is Monte Carlo Collisions. The results of the simulations were compared to a vacuum tank experiment conducted at the Air Force Research Laboratory. The results were compared for simulations with and without collisions using different neutral densities and levels of complexity for particle collisions. The effect of particle collisions is evident in the results of the simulations. Increasing the neutral density of the simulation does not have a major impact on the results in the plume region. Outside the plume region the particle collisions can affect the results by an order of magnitude or greater.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 12, 2006
Accession Number
ADA454716

Entities

People

  • Joseph Wang
  • Lubos Breida
  • Randy L. Spicer

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aeronautics
  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Astronautics
  • Collisions
  • Current Density
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Engineering
  • Experimental Data
  • Military Research
  • Particle Collisions
  • Particles
  • Simulations
  • Steady State
  • Thrusters
  • Vacuum
  • Vacuum Pumps

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion and Flow Dynamics.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics