Browsing by Author "Stock, Andreas"

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A high-order particle-in-cell method for low density plasma flow and the simulation of gyrotron resonator devices
(2013) Stock, Andreas; Munz, Claus-Dieter (Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil.)
Within this thesis a parallelized, transient, three-dimensional, high-order discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell solver is developed and used to simulate the resonant cavity of a gyrotron. The high-order discontinuous Galerkin approach - a Finite-Element type method - provides a fast and efficient algorithm to numerically solve Maxwell's equations used within this thesis. Besides its outstanding dissipation and dispersion properties, the discontinuous Galerkin approach easily allows for using unstructured grids, as required to simulate complex-shaped engineering devices. The discontinuous Galerkin approach approximates a wavelength with significantly less degrees of freedom compared to other methods, e.g. Finite Difference methods. Furthermore, the parallelization capabilities of the discontinuous Galerkin framework are excellent due to the very local dependencies between the elements. These properties are essential for the efficient numerical treatment of the Vlasov-Maxwell system with the Particle-in-Cell method. This system describes the self-consistent interaction of charged particles and the electromagnetic field. As central application within this thesis gyrotron resonators are simulated with the discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell method on high-performance-computers. The gyrotron is a high-power millimeter wave source, used for the electron cyclotron resonance heating of magnetically confined fusion plasma, e.g. in the Wendelstein 7-X experimental fusion-reactor. Compared to state-of-the-art simulation tools used for the design of gyrotron resonators the Particle-in-Cell method does not use any significant physically simplifications w.r.t. the modelling of the particle-field-interaction, the geometry and the wave-spectrum. Hence, it is the method of choice for validation of current simulation tools being restricted by these simplifications. So far, the Particle-in-Cell method was restricted to be used for demonstration calculations only, because of its huge computational demand and the thereby resulting long calculation time. Using the presented high-order discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell scheme on high-performance-computers, this thesis demonstrates for the first time that full-wave and transient research- and design-simulations of gyrotron resonators with high mode-indices can be efficiently performed. For benchmark issues the developed discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell scheme is verified with a 30 GHz resonant cavity and the results are compared to the SELFT code, which is a state-of-the-art design code for resonators. The discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell scheme is used to simulate the resonator of the 1 MW, 140 GHz, TE(28,8)-mode gyrotron, used for plasma heating of the Wendelstein 7-X fusion-reactor. Due to the huge number of degrees of freedom and particles, this type of simulation can only be performed on high-performance-computers with enough memory and computational power. Hence, the discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell code is improved by a new parallelization approach for the high-order shape-function deposition method on unstructured grids, allowing for a high-order coupling between the particles and the electromagnetic field. To further improve the discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell code, a multi-rate time-stepping method, based on an Adams-Bashforth approach, for the hyperbolic divergence cleaning is developed and verified. This new approach considers the different time scales occurring in the hyperbolic divergence cleaning allowing for a more efficient time-stepping-algorithm then standard time-stepping-schemes. A rule for the construction of arbitrary-order multi-rate time-stepping methods has been derived. The presented simulations provide new physical insights to the complex particle-field-interaction appearing in gyrotrons. The discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell scheme can be used to analyse transient phenomena, such as beam-miss-alignment, mode competition or interaction appearing at the end of the resonator, so called after-cavity-interactions. Those phenomena cannot or can only hardly be simulated with current design codes. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the ability of the discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell code to simulate the coupled resonator and quasi-optical antenna (launcher) of a gyrotron. With current codes these components could only be simulated separately, neglecting the complex interactions at the resonator output port and the influence of the electron hollow beam in the launcher. The high-order discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell simulations enable a holistic analysis of the interaction in a gyrotron. Furthermore, they pave the road to a complete simulation of a gyrotron, considering all its components, with a high-order discontinuous Galerkin Particle-in-Cell scheme – as presented here - on future high-performance-computers.