Plasma Simulations by Example

Lubos Brieda has over 10 years of experience developing plasma and gas simulation codes for electric propulsion, contamination transport, and plasma-surface interactions. As part of his master’s research work, he developed a 3D ES-PIC electric propulsion plume code, Draco, which is to this date utilized by AFRL and private aerospace firms to study plasma thruster plumes. His Ph.D, obtained in 2012 from George Washington University, USA, focused on a multi-scale model for Hall thrusters utilizing fluid-kinetic hybrid PIC codes. Recently, after four years working as an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, he developed a 3D particle-based contamination transport simulation program CTSP for modeling plume impingement, particulate redistribution during launch, and molecular transport in vacuum chambers. Since 2014 he has been teaching online courses on plasma simulations through his website.