Based on the three-dimensional particle-in-cell （PIC） method and Compute Unified Device Architecture （CUDA）, a parallel particle simulation code combined with a graphic processor unit （GPU） has been developed fo...Based on the three-dimensional particle-in-cell （PIC） method and Compute Unified Device Architecture （CUDA）, a parallel particle simulation code combined with a graphic processor unit （GPU） has been developed for the simulation of charge-exchange （CEX） xenon ions in the plume of an ion thruster. Using the proposed technique, the potential and CEX plasma distribution are calculated for the ion thruster plume surrounding the DS1 spacecraft at different thrust levels. The simulation results are in good agreement with measured CEX ion parameters reported in literature, and the CPU＇s results are equal to a CPU＇s. Compared with a single CPU Intel Core 2 E6300, 16-processor GPU NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT indicates a speedup factor of 3.6 when the total macro particle number is 1.1 × 10^6. The simulation results also reveal how the back flow CEX plasma affects the spacecraft floating potential, which indicates that the plume of the ion thruster is indeed able to alleviate the extreme negative floating potentials of spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit.展开更多
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10805004)Foundation of National Key Lab. of Science and Technology on Vacuum & Cryogenic of China (No. 9140C550404100C55)
文摘Based on the three-dimensional particle-in-cell （PIC） method and Compute Unified Device Architecture （CUDA）, a parallel particle simulation code combined with a graphic processor unit （GPU） has been developed for the simulation of charge-exchange （CEX） xenon ions in the plume of an ion thruster. Using the proposed technique, the potential and CEX plasma distribution are calculated for the ion thruster plume surrounding the DS1 spacecraft at different thrust levels. The simulation results are in good agreement with measured CEX ion parameters reported in literature, and the CPU＇s results are equal to a CPU＇s. Compared with a single CPU Intel Core 2 E6300, 16-processor GPU NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT indicates a speedup factor of 3.6 when the total macro particle number is 1.1 × 10^6. The simulation results also reveal how the back flow CEX plasma affects the spacecraft floating potential, which indicates that the plume of the ion thruster is indeed able to alleviate the extreme negative floating potentials of spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit.
