An improved electron pre-sheath model for TSS-1R current enhancement computations

This report presents improvements of investigations on the Tethered Satellite System (TSS)-1R electron current enhancement due to magnetic limited collections. New analytical expressions are obtained for the potential and temperature changes across the pre-sheath. The mathematical treatments in this work are more rigorous than one past approach. More experimental measurements collected in the ionosphere during the TSS-1R mission are adopted for validations. The relations developed in this work offer two bounding curves for these data points quite successfully; the average of these two curves is close to the curve-fitting results for the measurements; and an average of 2.95 times larger than the Parker-Murphy theory is revealed. The results indicate that including the pre-sheath analysis is important to compute the electron current enhancement due to magnetic limitations

A new gaskinetic model to analyze background flow effects on weak gaseous jet flows from electric propulsion devices

Recent work on studying rarefied background and jet flow interactions is reported. A new gaskinetic method is developed to investigate two closely related problems. The first problem is how a collisionless background flow can affect a highly rarefied jet flow. The rarefied jet and background flow conditions are assumed available and described with seven parameters. Gaskinetic theories are applied and formulas are obtained for the mixture properties. Simulations are performed to validate these expressions, and excellent agreement is obtained. The second problem is to recover the collisionless background and jet flow parameters with limited measurements. A group of linearized equations are derived for the flowfield properties. The solving process includes initial estimations on the seven parameters, followed with iterations. Numerical tests are performed and the results indicate the procedure is accurate and efficient. The new method and expressions can reduce the amount of experimental work and numerical simulations to analyze facility effects. Parameter studies with particle simulations may require several months; however, the new methods may require minutes. These methods can be used to quantify and predict jet performance, vacuum chamber designs and optimization. Applications may be for many societies using vacuum conditions

Gaskinetic modeling on dilute gaseous plume impingement flows

This paper briefly reviews recent work on gaseous plume impingement flows. As the major part of this paper, also included are new comprehensive studies on high-speed, collisionless, gaseous, circular jet impinging on a three-dimensional, inclined, diffuse or specular flat plate. Gaskinetic theories are adopted to study the problems, and several crucial geometry-location and velocity-direction relations are used. The final complete results include impingement surface properties such as pressure, shear stress, and heat flux. From these surface properties, averaged coefficients of pressure, friction, heat flux, moment over the entire flat plate, and the distance from the moment center to the flat plate center are obtained. The final results include accurate integrations involving the geometry and specific speed ratios, inclination angle, and the temperature ratio. Several numerical simulations with the direct simulation Monte Carlo method validate these analytical results, and the results are essentially identical. The gaskinetic method and processes are heuristic and can be used to investigate other external high Knudsen (Kn) number impingement flow problems, including the flow field and surface properties for a high Knudsen number jet from an exit and flat plate of arbitrary shapes. The results are expected to find many engineering applications, especially in aerospace and space engineering

A simple gas-kinetic model for dilute and weakly charged plasma micro-jet flows

This paper presents a simple model for slightly charged gas expanding into a vacuum from a planar exit. The number density, bulk velocity, temperature, and potential at the exit are given. The electric field force is assumed weaker than the convection term and is neglected in the analysis. As such, the quasi-neutral condition is naturally adopted and the potential field is computed with the Boltzmann relation. At far field, the exit degenerates as a point source, and simplified analytical formulas for flow and electric fields are obtained. The results are generic and offer insights on many existing models in the literature. They can be used to quickly approximate the flowfield and potential distributions without numerical simulations. They can also be used to initialize a simulation. Based on these results, more advanced models may be further developed

Gaseous plume flows in space propulsion

AbstractThis paper presents a gaskinetic study on high-speed, highly rarefied jets expanding into a vacuum from a cluster of planar or annular exits. Based on the corresponding exact expressions for a planar or annular jet, it is convenient to derive the combined multiple jet flowfield solutions of density and velocity components. For the combined temperature and pressure solutions, extra attention is needed. Several direct simulation Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to validate these analytical solutions. The analytical and numerical solutions are essentially identical for these high Knudsen number jet flows

Stability analysis on nonequilibrium supersonic boundary layer flow with velocity-slip boundary conditions

This paper presents our recent work on investigating velocity slip boundary conditions’ effects on supersonic flat plate boundary layer flow stability. The velocity-slip boundary conditions are adopted and the flow properties are obtained by solving boundary layer equations. Stability analysis of two such boundary layer flows is performed by using the Linear stability theory. A global method is first utilized to obtain approximate discrete mode values. A local method is then utilized to refine these mode values. All the modes in these two scenarios have been tracked upstream-wisely towards the leading edge and also downstream-wisely. The mode values for the no-slip flows agree well with the corresponding past results in the literature. For flows with slip boundary conditions, a stable and an unstable modes are detected. Mode tracking work is performed and the results illustrate that the resonance phenomenon between the stable and unstable modes is delayed with slip boundary conditions. The enforcement of the slip boundary conditions also shortens the unstable mode region. As to the conventional second mode, flows with slip boundary conditions can be more stable streamwisely when compared with the results for corresponding nonslip flows

Collisionless Gas Expanding into Vacuum

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77119/1/AIAA-32173-164.pd

3D Simulation of Plume Flows from a Cluster of Plasma Thrusters

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77194/1/AIAA-2005-4662-529.pd

Rarefication effects on jet impingement loads

Rarefication effects on jet impingement loads are studied by comparing recent new formulas at the collisionless flow limit and numerical simulations. The jet exit size is finite, and can be either planar or round. In the simulations, the jets have different degrees of rarefication, with a Knudsen (Kn) number ranging from 0 to infinity; i.e., the jet flows can be continuum, collisional, or collisionless. The comparison results indicate that (1) the new surface load formulas are accurate at the collisionless flow limit; (2) in general, the formulas offer upper limits for the peak loads; (3) however, it is improper to assert that local loads always decrease. The new formulas can offer fast estimations of impingement loads. This may be quite helpful for applications in space engineering by significantly reducing the amount of simulations and experiment costs. Those expressions explicitly include non-dimensional parameters, and their contribution and influence on the loads can be studied in a systematic manner (e.g., with a swift parameter study)