PROGRAM SUMMARY
Title of program:
PLASMAKIN
Catalogue identifier:
ADNH
Ref. in CPC:
135(2001)105
Distribution format: tar gzip file
Operating system: Tru64, Windows NT, Linux
High speed store required:
.5K words
Number of bits in a word:
32
Number of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc:
14647
Keywords:
Electrical discharges, Plasma physics, Chemical kinetics,
Reactions chemical, Gaseous electronics, Cold plasma, Kinetic model,
Molecular physics.
Programming language used: Fortran
Computer:
Alpha Workstations ,
PC .
Nature of physical problem:
A large number of problems in plasma physics involves the consideration
of several chemical species and reactions. The solution of such
problems invariably requires the ability to read, classify, sort and
manipulate particles and reactions and, frequently, the evaluation of
source terms in chemical kinetic equations, the energy transferred by
the electrons to the other particles, the gas heating due to collisions
or the photon emission spectra. The handling of these data frequently
represents a significant fraction of codes, development and maintenance
time and is a source of errors. It would clearly be advantageous to
have a package able to deal with that data independently of the number
or nature of the species and chemical reactions involved and of the
problem being solved or the method used. Such a package could be used
as a "black box" moving the description of particles and reactions from
code to a data file, allowing the user to concentrate on the physical
problem and on the algorithm to solve it. Once the code developed, it
would allow an easy and fast modification and testing of chemical
models.
Method of solution:
The present library handles chemical species and reactions and computes
the collision terms for particle and energy conservation equations. The
species and reactions are described in an ASCII external data file using
a compact description language. Species properties, reaction data and
the evaluation of the collisional terms of the conservation equations
are hidden from the calling programs allowing to build programs
independent of the gas mixture or kinetic model. The included test
program uses a modified Powell hybrid algorithm to solve systems of
nonlinear equations.
Restrictions:
The maximum number of reactants or products taking part in a reaction
has been limited to four; however this number can be changed modifying a
parameter constant. Ionic excited species are not supported; three body
collisions and surface reactions do not support the selection of
different species as, respectively, third body or adsorbed reacting
atom.
Typical running time:
Largely dependent on the problem, the test program takes some seconds.
Unusual features:
Sample program uses routine DNEQNF from IMSL library.