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Abstract: In this paper, the development of a two-dimensional plasma fluid modeling code using the cell-centered finite-volume method and its parallel implementation on distributed memory machines is reported. Simulated discharge currents agree very well with the measured data in a planar dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). Parallel performance of simulating helium DBD solved by the different degrees of overlapping of additive Schwarz method (ASM) preconditioned generalized minimal residual method (GMRES) for different modeling equations is investigated for a small and a large test problem, respectively, employing up to 128 processors. For the large test problem, almost linear speedup can be obtained by using up to 128 processors. Finally, a large-scale realistic two-dimensional DBD problem is employed to demonstrate the capability of the developed fluid modeling code for simulating the low-temperature plasma with complex chemical reactions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The effect on the selection of different plasma chemistries for simulating a typical dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) driven by quasi-pulsed power source (20 kHz) is investigated. The numerical simulation was performed by using the one-dimensional self-consistent fluid modeling solver. Our simulation result indicates that the computed temporal current density can be significantly improved by using a complex version of plasma chemistry module rather than the simple one and demonstrates an excellent agreement with the experimental data. The result suggests the metastable, excited and ionic helium related reaction channels, which are important in simulating a DBD, should be taken into account. Furthermore, it also reveals that the power absorption of ions is considerably higher than that of the electron. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Parallel-plate nitrogen dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) driven by a quasi-pulsed power source (60 kHz) is simulated using a fully-implicit 1D self-consistent fluid modeling code. Simulated discharged currents of gap distances (0.5, 0.7 and 1.0 mm) agree very well with measured data; while simulated discharged currents of wider gap distance (1.2 mm) fail to reproduce the measured data. It is found that the discharge mode is homogeneous Townsend-like for the former case; while it is filamentary-like for the latter case based on the experimental observation. These findings demonstrate that previous numerical studies showing mode transition by changing the gap distance may require further investigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Development of a hybrid numerical algorithm which couples weakly with the gas flow model (GFM) and the plasma fluid model (PFM) for simulating an atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ) and its acceleration by two approaches is presented. The weak coupling between gas flow and discharge is introduced by transferring between the results obtained from the steady-state solution of the GFM and cycle-averaged solution of the PFM respectively. Approaches of reducing the overall runtime include parallel computing of the GFM and the PFM solvers, and employing a temporal multi-scale method (TMSM) for PFM. Parallel computing of both solvers is realized using the domain decomposition method with the message passing interface (MPI) on distributed-memory machines. The TMSM considers only chemical reactions by ignoring the transport terms when integrating temporally the continuity equations of heavy species at each time step, and then the transport terms are restored only at an interval of time marching steps. The total reduction of runtime is 47% by applying the TMSM to the APPJ example presented in this study. Application of the proposed hybrid algorithm is demonstrated by simulating a parallel-plate helium APPJ impinging onto a substrate, which the cycle-averaged properties of the 200th cycle are presented. The distribution patterns of species densities are strongly correlated by the background gas flow pattern, which shows that consideration of gas flow in APPJ simulations is critical. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A parallel electrostatic Poisson''s equation solver coupled with parallel adaptive mesh refinement (PAMR) is developed in this paper. The three-dimensional Poisson''s equation is discretized using the Galerkin finite element method using a tetrahedral mesh. The resulting matrix equation is then solved through the parallel conjugate gradient method using the non-overlapping subdomain-by-subdomain scheme. A PAMR module is coupled with this parallel Poisson''s equation solver to adaptively refine the mesh where the variation of potentials is large. The parallel performance of the parallel Poisson''s equation is studied by simulating the potential distribution of a CNT-based triode-type field emitter. Results with ∼100 000 nodes show that a parallel efficiency of 84.2% is achieved in 32 processors of a PC-cluster system. The field emission properties of a single CNT triode- and tetrode-type field emitter in a periodic cell are computed to demonstrate their potential application in field emission prediction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A parallelized three-dimensional self-consistent electrostatic particle-in-cell (PIC) code using unstructured tetrahedral mesh is proposed. Parallel implementation of the current unstructured PIC-FEM code is realized on distributed-memory PC-cluster system utilizing dynamic domain decomposition. Completed code is verified by simulating a quasi-1D RF argon gas discharge with results comparable to previous experimental observations and simulations. Parallel performance with dynamic domain decomposition of the PIC code is tested using a 3D RF argon gas discharge on a PC-cluster system. Results show that parallel efficiency can achieve 83% at 32 processors with dynamic domain decomposition. Some possible improvement of the code performance is demonstrated. Completed code is then applied to predict field emission without and with space-charge effect, and to simulate the RF magnetron argon plasma to demonstrate its capability in handling practical problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]