Self consistent kinetic simulations of SPT and HEMP thrusters including the near-field plume region

The Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method was used to study two different ion thruster concepts - Stationary Plasma Thrusters (SPT) and High Efficiency Multistage Plasma Thrusters (HEMP-T), in particular the plasma properties in the discharge chamber due to the different magnetic field configurations. Special attention was paid to the simulation of plasma particle fluxes on the thrusters channel surfaces. In both cases, PIC proved itself as a powerful tool, delivering important insight into the basic physics of the different thruster concepts. The simulations demonstrated that the new HEMP thruster concept allows for a high thermal efficiency due to both minimal energy dissipation and high acceleration efficiency. In the HEMP thruster the plasma contact to the wall is limited only to very small areas of the magnetic field cusps, which results in much smaller ion energy flux to the thruster channel surface as compared to SPT. The erosion yields for dielectric discharge channel walls of SPT and HEMP thrusters were calculated with the binary collision code SDTrimSP. For SPT, an erosion rate on the level of 1 mm of sputtered material per hour was observed. For HEMP, thruster simulations have shown that there is no erosion inside the dielectric discharge channel.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures This work was presented at 21st International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Plasmas (ICNSP'09

Vaccination with novel low-molecular weight proteins secreted from Trichinella spiralis inhibits establishment of infection

Trichinella spiralis muscle stage larvae (mL1) produce excretory-secreted products (ESPs), a complex mixture of protein, which are believed to be important for establishing or maintaining an infection niche within skeletal muscle and the intestine. Studies of both whole ESPs and individual cloned proteins have shown that some ESPs are potent immunogens capable of eliciting protective immune responses. Here we describe two novel proteins, Secreted from Muscle stage Larvae SML-4 and SML-5 which are 15 kDa and 12 kDa respectively. The genes encoding these proteins are highly conserved within the Trichinellids, are constituents of mL1 ESP and localized in the parasite stichosome. While SML-5 is only expressed in mL1 and early stages of adult nematode development, SML-4 is a tyvosylated glycoprotein also produced by adult nematodes, indicating it may have a function in the enteral phase of the infection. Vaccination with these proteins resulted in an impaired establishment of adult stages and consequently a reduction in the burden of mL1 in BALB/c mice. This suggests that both proteins may be important for establishment of parasite infection of the intestine and are prophylactic vaccine candidates

Experimental and numerical studies of microwave-plasma interaction in a MWPECVD reactor

This work deals with and proposes a simple and compact diagnostic method able to characterize the interaction between microwave and plasma without the necessity of using an external diagnostic tool. The interaction between 2.45 GHz microwave and plasma, in a typical ASTeX-type reactor, is investigated from experimental and numerical view points. The experiments are performed by considering plasmas of three different gas mixtures: H2, CH4-H2 and CH4-H2-N2. The two latter are used to deposit synthetic undoped and n-doped diamond films. The experimental setup equipped with a matching network enables the measurements of very low reflected power. The reflected powers show ripples due to the mismatching between wave and plasma impedance. Specifically, the three types of plasma exhibit reflected power values related to the variation of electron-neutral collision frequency among the species by changing the gas mixture. The different gas mixtures studied are also useful to test the sensitivity of the reflected power measurements to the change of plasma composition. By means of a numerical model, only the interaction of microwave and H2 plasma is examined allowing the estimation of plasma and matching network impedances and of reflected power that is found about eighteen times higher than that measured

Three-dimensional plume simulation of multi-channel thruster configuration

4noA three-dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell model of the plume emitted by a four-channel Hall-effect thruster configuration for a preliminary design study has been developed. Results show the presence of a potential well in the central region close to the exit plane of the configuration. Together with the typical characteristics of the single channel ion energy spectrum, a double peak structure in the low energy range is present in the four-channel configuration. It is due to the geometrical effects (four-channel source) and to the anisotropic nature of ion-atom scattering.nonenoneTaccogna, F.; Pagano, D.; Scortecci, F.; Garulli, AndreaTaccogna, F.; Pagano, D.; Scortecci, F.; Garulli, Andre