LANL VECTOR PARTICLE-IN-CELL SIMULATION OF PLASMA FLOW IN A HALL EFFECT THRUSTER

GEM Fellow/Graduate Research Scientist

Los Alamos National Laboratories

Summer '19

Ran large-scale, parallel simulations of collisionless plasmas using LANL's Vector Particle-in-Cell code (VPIC), a fully relativistic kinetic code that solves the Maxwell-Boltzmann equations in an energy-conserving scheme. Initially examined shock development in mildly relativistic, unmagnetized collisionless counter-streaming flows (applicable to a wide range of astrophysical problems). Developed Hall Effect thruster (HET) model for VPIC by determining the relevant PIC parameters to model the HET in VPIC. Then explored the effect of varying ion-to-electron mass ratios in the HET simulations, employing an ion-to-electron mass ratio of up to 1000. Discovered plasma instabilities appear more readily as the mass ratio increases.

ALBUS CUBESAT

Pathways Intern

NASA Glenn Research Center

Summer '17

This project was performed while at my summer internship as a NASA Glenn Pathways student. I worked as the Assembly Integration and Test Systems engineer on a high-power density CubeSat. Responsible for writing the environmental test plans (Random Shock and Vibrations, Deployer Fit Check, and Thermal Vacuum Tests) for the flight hardware as well as performing a dry run of the Thermal Vacuum test. Designed test hardware and the electronics stack up to mimic flight hardware for test to validate thermal models and test profiles for the run for records test with the flight hardware.