Affiliation
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of ArizonaIssue Date
2022-01
Metadata
Show full item recordPublisher
AIP PublishingCitation
Parent, B., Thoguluva Rajendran, P., & Omprakas, A. (2022). Electron losses in hypersonic flows. Physics of Fluids.Journal
Physics of FluidsRights
© 2022 Author(s). Published under license by AIP Publishing.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The first comprehensive study of electron gains and losses in hypersonic air flows including the full coupling between non-neutral plasma sheaths and quasi-neutral plasma flows is presented here. This is made possible by the use of advanced numerical methods that overcome the stiffness associated with plasma sheaths. The coupling between the sheaths, the electron temperature in non-equilibrium, and the ambipolar diffusion within quasi-neutral plasma flows is found to be critical to accurately predict electron losses and, thus, the plasma density around hypersonic vehicles. This is because electron cooling arising from the non-neutral sheaths significantly affects the electron temperature everywhere in the plasma and, therefore, the electron temperature-dependent loss processes of ambipolar diffusion and dissociative recombination. The results obtained show that electron loss to the surface due to catalyticity dominates over electron loss within the plasma due to dissociative recombination either (i) at high altitudes where the dynamic pressure is low, (ii) at low Mach number, or (iii) when the vehicle has a sharp leading edge.Note
12 month embargo; published online: 19 January 2022ISSN
1070-6631EISSN
1089-7666Version
Final published versionSponsors
Raytheon Missiles and Defenseae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1063/5.0079685