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The development of compact propulsion systems for nano and micro satellites is nowadays a growing research topic. Actually, the availability of low cost materials able to withstand space operation is now becoming widespread technology. This democratization on the access to space was not followed with a corresponding availability of critical propulsion technologies. However, the availability of propulsion systems for this class of satellites will provide them with new possibilities in what relates to mission profiles. In the present work an electrospray will be analysed, in particular the flow in the nozzle. This flow is controlled by a mix of pressure and electrostatic field. A full EHD (electrohydrodynamics) computational model is developed that is integrated in a classic CFD code using user specified functions. The proposed computational model was able to compute the flowfield for the electrospray test case under consideration. A benchmark against experimental results, by comparing spray thruster droplet size, concluded that the numerical model can predict their size within an error of 5%.

RESUMO -With the advance of programming languages, the availability of better hardware, and the emergence of new libraries for numerical development, it has been possible to use high level abstractions to prototype and solve complex problems in many fields of knowledge. In the context of numerical simulation using the Finite Volume Method, those new tools can be used, so that the developer is able to make experiments with less effort. This work compares several libraries from the Python programming language (Pure Python implementation, Cython, NumPy, Numba, Scipy, petsc4py, and pure C/C++), aiming to solve fluid flow problems and comparing execution performance from each tools