• plasma simulation
• particle-in-cell
• Monte Carlo
• plasma plume
• Hall thruster
• electric propulsion

Electric propulsion is nowadays a widely used type of spacecraft propulsion, which offer substantial fuel savings for many space applications.
Recent advancements in solar power generation onboard the satellites are making high-power electric thrusters ideal candidates for ambitious future space missions.
In the high-power level (in the order of tens of kilowatts), one of the devices that are promising for near future applications is the Hall Thruster (HT).
The HT releases a partially ionized plasma plume in which charged particles are accelerated to high velocities.
The plume is a major concern for contamination and erosion of sensitive surfaces, and it may interfere with scientific instruments and communication signals.
Experimental campaigns are costly and time-consuming, and require proper test facilities in order to perform representative measurements. For high-power electric thrusters, experimental characterizations become even more prohibitive, since large amounts of propellant and large vacuum chambers are needed.
The work of this thesis concerned the creation of a computational model of the plume of a Hall Thruster, for which a thorough description is presented.
The model is based on the hybrid fluid Particle-In-Cell technique, coupled with the Monte Carlo Collision algorithm.
The simulation is performed over an axisymmetric computational domain, where the plasma is assumed quasi-neutral everywhere, and its behavior is dominated by the local electric fields and by momentum-exchange and charge-exchange collisions between particles.
Plasma plume simulations can be performed either with xenon or krypton as propellant, deciding to emulate whether the ground testing facility or the outer space environment.
Moreover, virtual probes are implemented, allowing to obtain several plasma parameters in the domain.
The model has been validated against experimental data and the results have been found to be in good agreement.
Finally, simulations of the SITAEL 20 kW Hall Thruster have been performed in different operative conditions to present the current capabilities of the developed computational model.