The Plasimo code is a toolbox that provides support for the numerical simulation of plasma sources of various degrees of equilibrium. It comes with a number of electromagnetic modules, flow solvers, modules for calculating transport coefficients, radiation transport and for the generation of ortho-curvilinear coordinate systems. Plasimo supports transient and steady-state simulations of plasma sources in one-, two and three-dimensional geometries.This paper presents a selection of Plasimo's sub-models. A discussion of the physics behind each module is accompanied by notes about the module's capabilities and limitations and by references to original works and papers in which that particular module was used. As such, it provides a good entry point for people who consider using Plasimo—or parts of it—for their simulation needs.
The chemical complexity of non-equilibrium plasmas poses a challenge for plasma modeling because of the computational load. This paper presents a dimension reduction method for such chemically complex plasmas based on principal component analysis (PCA). PCA is used to identify a low-dimensional manifold in chemical state space that is described by a small number of parameters: the principal components. Reduction is obtained since continuity equations only need to be solved for these principal components and not for all the species. Application of the presented method to a CO 2 plasma model including state-to-state vibrational kinetics of CO 2 and CO demonstrates the potential of the PCA method for dimension reduction. A manifold described by only two principal components is able to predict the CO 2 to CO conversion at varying ionization degrees very accurately.
The CO 2 dissociation in supersonic nozzles has recently become of great interest. The non-equilibrium in supersonic nozzles is the key for an efficient CO 2 dissociation. This study has two objectives. First, the development of one dimensional models is targeted. Second, the influence of different steering conditions and design parameters on CO 2 vibrational non-equilibrium have been studied within the framework of developed models. In this paper, a simple method, the semi-analytical model, is presented which despite being very simple and fast (few seconds) can perform as well as its more sophisticated counterparts. For validation purposes we also developed and applied a quasi-1D numerical model. The influence of the expansion length, as a design parameter, on the non-equilibrium is investigated. It is found that there is no optimal Mach number as long as the expansion length is carefully chosen. The higher the Mach number, the more significant the non-equilibrium. The effect of inlet parameters such as the gas temperature, the pressure and the electron temperature have been studied. The highest non-equilibrium is obtained when a low inlet temperature is taken provided that an appropriate expansion length is used. The inlet pressure is shown to have theoretically no influence on the state of non-equilibrium as long as the expansion length is accordingly chosen. Finally, the study of the impact of the electron temperature on the vibrational distribution function indicates that a continuous pooling of higher vibrational states can be obtained in the diverging part of the nozzle. The higher the electron temperature, the higher the yield.
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