Collaborative Proposal: SI2-SSE: An open source multi-physics platform to advance fundamental understanding of plasma physics and enable impactful application of plasma systems

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

As the world moves toward a more sustainable life cycle for vital resources, new techniques for the synthesis, modification, or remediation of materials will be needed.  Techniques that utilize plasma discharges will make significant contributions to a more sustainable nexus spanning food, water, and energy.  To advance the fundamental understanding of these plasma-based systems and how they interact with the materials that will drive this higher level of sustainability, the ability to simulate both the complex interactions within the plasma itself and the complex interaction of the plasma with surrounding materials is needed.  This project will provide a powerful simulation platform to the scientific community that will enable the study of plasma chemistry formation and plasma material interaction with a level of fidelity that is not currently available to researchers around the world.  The open-source framework for this platform will enable researchers from institutions around the world to contribute to the capabilities of this framework and advance the underlying science of these systems to move toward a more sustainable food, energy, and water nexus. To advance plasma-based technology that will enable greater sustainability in the future food, energy, and water nexus, there exists an overarching need for advances in simulation capability that address four unifying research challenges, 1.) Plasma Produced Selectivity in Reaction Mechanisms in the Volume and on Surfaces, 2.) Interfacial Plasma Phenomena, 3.) Multiscale, Non-Equilibrium Chemical Physics, and 4.) Synergy and Complexity in Plasmas.  This research effort will expand, deploy, and support a powerful open-source multi-physics platform that will enable advanced simulation in these unifying research areas.  A plasma science simulation application will be expanded to include complex multi-phase chemistries, multiple-domain simulation of the interface between plasmas and other material phases, and fully coupled electro-magnetic treatment of plasma systems that will link plasma formation mechanisms with underlying chemical and electrical multi-phase interactions.  Zapdos will be supported on the existing multi-physics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) and will leverage the existing support, verification, revision tracking, and training infrastructure and best known methods employed by both MOOSE and the 22 developed applications (including Zapdos) that currently reside on the MOOSE framework. This proposal will leverage collaboration not only between the two partnering universities, but with framework developers (Idaho National Laboratory), existing users (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and the broader plasma community (APS Topical Meeting on Gaseous Electronics) to develop efficient development, deployment, support, and training of this impactful simulation tool. This project is supported by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering, the Physics Division and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems in the Directorate of Engineering.