Hybrid Particle-Fluid Methods for Nonequilibrium Gas and Plasma Flows

Two different hybrid particle-continuum methods are described for simulation of nonequilibrium gas and plasma dynamics. The first technique, used for nonequilibrium hypersonic gas flows, uses either a continuum description or a particle method throughout a flow domain based on local conditions. The second method uses a, continuum model the electrons combined with a particle description of the ions and atoms for simulating plasma jets. These examples illustrate that the multi-scale physical phenomena associated with nonequilibrium conditions can be simulated with physical accuracy and numerical efficiency rising such hybrid approaches.