• cathodes
• cfd
• chemistry
• collisions
• computational fluid dynamics
• electric thrusters
• Euler implicit schemes
• finite-volume method
• gaskinetic theory
• hollow cathodes
• multi-species
• plasma
• Roe scheme

Electric Propulsion is the one granting the highest specific impulses among the currently available propulsion technologies for Space applications. In electric thrusters, a plasma is generated by ionizing a neutral propellant and it is then accelerated by the application of electro-magnetic fields. For this reason, a precise knowledge of the Fluid Dynamics of a plasma fluid inside and outside of the thruster is fundamental for designing the engine in the most efficient way which can be obtained only using complex numerical softwares. In the present thesis, a numerical model for the analysis of a plasma Fluid Dynamics is proposed, aiming to define a code capable of capturing the dynamics of a flow, either neutral or charged, composed of an arbitrary number of species which can interact in a user-defined number of ways. The proposed code is based on the Finite Volume Method, and the solution is advanced dividing each time-step in two: firstly, the system of equations is solved without the source term and then a correction is applied solving a system of ODEs without the spatial terms. Spatial discretization is achieved adopting Roe’s scheme, while time discretization is performed with an Implicit Euler method. To obtain the distribution of the Electric field, Poisson’s Equation is solved. In parallel with the mathematical definition, a rough version of the most important features of the proposed software has been realized and Poisson’s solver module has been verified, comparing with exact solutions in numerous testcases. The results show very good convergence properties when the mesh size is increased although computational times are quite high, indicating that further optimization is required.