Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Nowadays, plasma simulation is one of the most developing physics and engineering disciplines. The growth is due to the increasing demand for low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and further space exploration using small satellites. These satellites use the electric propulsion system, one of the plasma applications, because of its high efficiency and light weight. This thesis aims to understand the fundamental theories of plasma and learn how to model them numerically. Therefore, this thesis focused on understanding previous plasma simulation models, developing the numerical model for plasma simulation, and applying the recently used particle-based method in the Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Institut Teknologi Bandung (FMAE ITB). Hall thruster, one of the electric propulsion types, will be studied and numerically simulated in this thesis. The main reference of this research is the previous research work by [Szabo, 2001]. The simulation domain and numerical models are also taken from Szabo’s works. In his research, Szabo used a fully kinetic model to simulate all plasma particles (electrons, ions, and neutrals), and none of them were treated as fluid. The method that is commonly used to conduct fully kinetic simulation is the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method. This thesis will re-simulate the Hall thruster using the model which Szabo proposed. The difference made in this thesis is in solving Poisson’s equations to obtain electric field (E) by using the particle-based method. The particle-based Least Squares Moving Particle Semi-implicit (LSMPS) method will be used to replace the previous grid-based Finite Volume Method (FVM). LSPMS was introduced first time by [Koshizuka and Tamai, 2014] and has been used in some numerical simulation researches in FMAE ITB. The results from this thesis will be used as a reference and base knowledge to conduct further plasma simulations. It will increase the capability of FMAE ITB to do research in plasma simulations and be able to innovate in this field.