SPARC - A Simulation Model for Electrical Charges

Abstract

A simulation model for electrical discharges which is capable of modeling streamer and leader propagation over long distances is described. The model couples an electrostatic field solver, a chemistry package, and a package for solving the hydrodynamic equations for a multi-species plasma. Optionally, an implicit solution of the fluid equations for the electrons can be used to allow for long time steps. Due to the computationally demanding nature of the problem, the code features a semi-adaptive grid based on a sliding re-zone technique. The code is also parallelized and has been successfully scaled to hundreds of processors. Sample results are given showing streamer propagation over long distances, the streamer to leader transition, and hydrodynamic expansion of the hot gas.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 20, 2006
Accession Number
ADA456102

Entities

People

  • D. Gordon
  • M. Lampe
  • Phillip A. Sprangle
  • R. Fernsler
  • S. Slinker

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aspect Ratio
  • Cellular Structures
  • Charge Density
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemistry
  • Computational Science
  • Electric Discharges
  • Electric Fields
  • Electron Density
  • Electrons
  • Femtosecond Lasers
  • Laser Pulses
  • Lepidoptera
  • Poisson Equation
  • Space Charge
  • Two Dimensional
  • Voltage

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics