English

Cross-Code verification and sensitivity analysis to effectively model the electrothermal instability

Plasma Physics 2021-03-10 v1 Computational Physics Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

This manuscript presents verification cases that are developed to study the electrothermal instability (ETI). Specific verification cases are included to ensure that the unit physics components necessary to model the ETI are accurate, providing a path for fluid-based codes to effectively simulate ETI in the linear and nonlinear growth regimes. Two software frameworks with different algorithmic approaches are compared for accuracy in their ability to simulate diffusion of a magnetic field, linear growth of the ETI, and a fully nonlinear ETI evolution. The nonlinear ETI simulations show early time agreement, with some differences emerging, as noted in the wavenumber spectrum, late into the nonlinear development of ETI. A sensitivity study explores the role of equation-of-state (EOS), vacuum density, and vacuum resistivity. EOS and vacuum resistivity are found to be the most critical factors in the modeling of nonlinear ETI development.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.03378,
  title  = {Cross-Code verification and sensitivity analysis to effectively model the electrothermal instability},
  author = {R. L. Masti and C. L. Ellison and J. R. King and P. H. Stoltz and B. Srinivasan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.03378},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

14 pages, 14 figures, To be published in the journal of High Energy Density Physics

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:53:14.414Z