Electromagnetic Flow Control in Hypersonic Rarefied Environment

Abstract: The Unified Gas-Kinetic Wave-Particle (UGKWP) method, developed for multiscale simulation of partially ionized plasmas, has been extended to unstructured meshes, enabling the modeling of electromagnetic flows around a hemisphere across near-continuum to rarefied regimes. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first application of a multiscale plasma solver to this problem. In our approach, neutrals, ions, and electrons are treated as distinct species, with electrons modeled beyond the conventional fluid approximation. The numerical implementation is validated through comparison with reference solutions for neutral hypersonic flow around a sphere, as well as benchmarking against experimental data for a Mach 4.75 pre-ionized argon flow. In both cases, the UGKWP results show good agreement with the reference and experimental data. The findings reveal that rarefied effects play a significant role in the prediction of electromagnetic flow control, underscoring the necessity of multiscale modeling in plasma flow applications.