Development of a novel DC micro-discharge code on dsmcFoam+ for plasma effect in DSMC flow profile simulations and its application to a micro-plasma system

Abstract

Recent advances in the miniaturisation of plasma-based microelectromechanical systems have permitted their application in the space sector, such as flow control of flying vehicles and the potential usage in high precision attitude and orbit control systems for CubeSats. To determine its contribution in pressure, velocity, and temperature profiles for thrust analysis on micro-fluidic channels in space/vacuum environments, a novel DC micro-discharge code has been developed in the dsmcFoam+ solver in order to simulate the ionic effects on the gas flow during the breakdown voltage in microgaps.The rarefied gas flow was solved using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, with the Fowler–Nordheim equation to calculate the ionic current density during the vacuum field emissions effect for the micro-plasma simulation.The incorporation of the Fowler–Nordheim model avoids the addition of an exponential increase in computational power requirements for a DSMC simulation. Instead of introducing new electrons and ions as equivalent particles into the system, the existing DSMC gas particles in the cells are accelerated. Through this, a computationally lightweight alternative for micro-scale plasma simulations utilising the dsmcFoam+ solver is achieved, which can be tailored to the thrust requirements of a particular mission.