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The flow through a thin slit and a thin orifice is studied with the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), cubic Fokker–Planck (FP), and a coupled FP-DSMC hybrid method. Pressure driven monatomic gas flows through a slit and an orifice with various values of degree of rarefaction and pressure ratio are computed. The DSMC method is physically accurate for all flow regimes; however it is computationally expensive in high density, near continuum regions. An alternative stochastic particle scheme, the cubic FP kinetic model has addressed this issue by approximating the particle collisions involved in the Boltzmann collision integral with continuous stochastic processes. The ability of the cubic FP method to reproduce breakdown of translational equilibrium is discussed. In addition, a coupled FP-DSMC hybrid scheme is employed aiming at an efficient and accurate solution. The FP-DSMC hybrid scheme employs DSMC in rarefied regions and FP method in near continuum flow regions. Numerical procedures of the cubic FP method are implemented within the framework of an existing DSMC-solver, SPARTA. The FP-DSMC hybrid solution reproduces pure DSMC solution with improved computational efficiency up to a factor of eight for vacuum flow through a thin slit.

Fokker-Planck kinetic models have been devised as an approximation of the Boltzmann collision operator. Cubic Fokker-Planck-DSMC hybrid method is employed to simulate the diatomic gas flow through a thin slit and a thin orifice. Pressure driven nitrogen expansion gas flows with two different pressure ratios are investigated at Knudsen number 0.001. The DSMC method is physically accurate for all flow regime; however it is computationally expensive in high density or near continuum regions. The Fokker-Planck-DSMC hybrid scheme employs DSMC in rarefied regions and Fokker-Planck method in near continuum flow regions for an efficient and accurate solution. Numerical procedures of the cubic Fokker-Planck method are implemented within the framework of an existing DSMC-solver, SPARTA. The Fokker-Planck-DSMC hybrid solution reproduces pure DSMC solution with improved computational efficiency up to a factor of five for vacuum flow through a thin orifice. In addition, breakdown of translational equilibrium is investigated. Domain criterion of FP-DSMC is safely smaller than Bird's breakdown criterion.

In this work, an investigation of the neutral gas flow in the JET sub-divertor area is presented, with respect to the interaction between the plasma side and the pumping side. The edge plasma side is simulated with the SOLPS code, while the sub-divertor area is modeled by means of the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, which in the last few years has proved well able to describe rarefied, collisional flows in tokamak sub-divertor structures. Four different plasma scenarios have been selected, and for each of them a user-defined, iterative procedure between SOLPS and DSMC has been established, using the neutral flux as the key communication term between the two codes. The goal is to understand and quantify the mutual influence between the two regions in a self-consistent manner, that is to say, how the particle exhaust pumping system controls the upstream plasma conditions. Parametric studies of the flow conditions in the sub-divertor, including additional flow outlets and variations of the cryopump capture coefficient, have been performed as well, in order to understand their overall impact on the flow field. The DSMC analyses resulted in the calculation of both the macroscopic quantities—i.e. temperature, number density and pressure—and the recirculation fluxes towards the plasma chamber. The consistent values for the recirculation rates were found to be smaller than those according to the initial standard assumption made by SOLPS.