Hybrid Particle-Continuum Methods for Nonequilibrium Gas and Plasma Flows

Abstract

Two different hybrid particle-continuum methods are described for simulation of nonequilibrium gas and plasma dynamics. The first technique, used for nonequilibrium hypersonic gas flows, uses either a continuum description or a particle method throughout a flow domain based on local conditions. This technique is successful in reproducing the results of full particle simulations at a small fraction of the cost. The second method uses a continuum model of the electrons combined with a particle description of the ions and atoms for simulating plasma jets. The physical accuracy of the method is assessed through comparisons with data measured in space. These examples illustrate that the multi-scale physical phenomena associated with nonequilibrium conditions can be simulated with physical accuracy and numerical efficiency using such hybrid approaches.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA524481

Entities

People

  • Iain D. Boyd

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Dynamics
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Electrons
  • Energy Transfer
  • Flow
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Flow
  • Fluids
  • Gas Dynamics
  • Gas Flow
  • Hall Thrusters
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Plasma Jets
  • Simulations

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)

Technology Areas

  • Hypersonics
  • Hypersonics - Hypersonic Flight
  • Microelectronics
  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster