A Grid-Free Approach for Plasma Simulations (Grid-Free Plasma Simulation Techniques)

Abstract

This project draws together a team of researchers to develop new grid-free tools for plasma simulations. The objectives are: (1) to develop a grid-free field solver, fluid model, and kinetic model, (2) to evaluate these tools in comparison with traditional mesh-based methods, and (3) to demonstrate the capability of the grid-free approach in an application of USAF interest. The field solver will use boundary integral methods and a recently developed tree code algorithm to compute the electrostatic force induced by a set of charged particles. The kinetic model will use tree-based statistical procedures for inter-particle collisions. Various hybrid grid-free simulations will be possible using these tools. The resulting grid-free approach will have several advantages over traditional mesh-based methods: it will eliminate the need for elaborate volume-meshing routines required to handle complex geometry, and will avoid the spurious numerical artifacts in the particle distribution that can arise in mesh-based schemes.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 10, 2007
Accession Number
ADA472161

Entities

People

  • Andrew J. Christlieb
  • Iain D. Boyd
  • Jerold W. Emhoff
  • John Verboncoeur
  • Robert Krasny

Organizations

  • University of Michigan

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Boltzmann Equation
  • Central Processing Units
  • Charged Particles
  • Collisions
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Differential Equations
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Free Field
  • Geometry
  • Mathematics
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Physics Laboratories
  • Simulations
  • Space Propulsion
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics