Reactive Trace Species Modeling with the Simulation Tool PICLas
Abstract
A species-specific weighting scheme for the Natural-Sample-Size collision model within the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method is developed and implemented in the open-source gas and plasma solver PICLas. The implemented weighting scheme places particular emphasis on chemical reactions and ionization processes of trace species in order to guarantee physically accurate and low-noise simulations of atmospheric entry processes. The successful implementation and the conservation of momentum and energy during relaxation processes and chemical reactions are verified through a reservoir simulation of a reacting air mixture. As a more sophisticated validation case, atmospheric entry simulations of a cylinder at an altitude of 108 km are investigated. In a final step, the developed weighting scheme is employed to investigate ionization processes in the shock layer surrounding the RAM-C II reentry probe during atmospheric entry. The simulations showed very good agreement with experimental flight data and reduced noise in the rarefied regions for the charged species.
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BibTeX
@misc{lauterbach2026reactive,
title = {{Reactive Trace Species Modeling with the Simulation Tool PICLas}},
author = {Simone Lauterbach and Kim-Sophie Ellenberger and Stefanos Fasoulas and Marcel Pfeiffer},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25073},
eprint = {2609.25073},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25073},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Reactive Trace Species Modeling with the Simulation Tool PICLas
AU - Simone Lauterbach
AU - Kim-Sophie Ellenberger
AU - Stefanos Fasoulas
AU - Marcel Pfeiffer
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25073
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25073
AB - A species-specific weighting scheme for the Natural-Sample-Size collision model within the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method is developed and implemented in the open-source gas and plasma solver PICLas. The implemented weighting scheme places particular emphasis on chemical reactions and ionization processes of trace species in order to guarantee physically accurate and low-noise simulations of atmospheric entry processes. The successful implementation and the conservation of momentum and energy during relaxation processes and chemical reactions are verified through a reservoir simulation of a reacting air mixture. As a more sophisticated validation case, atmospheric entry simulations of a cylinder at an altitude of 108 km are investigated. In a final step, the developed weighting scheme is employed to investigate ionization processes in the shock layer surrounding the RAM-C II reentry probe during atmospheric entry. The simulations showed very good agreement with experimental flight data and reduced noise in the rarefied regions for the charged species.
ER -