Resource Menu


This preliminary program for the SPIS trainning is still under definition and may be modified without notification until the "Winter School 2012" session.

1st day session

08.00 - 10.00: Part I - The modelling chain and the SPIS-UI framework

  • 1) Global overview of plasma and spacecraft surface interaction concepts
  • 2) General presentation of the SPIS-UI framework
    • 2.1) Global overview
    • 2.2) Presentation of the Graphical User Interface
    • 2.3) Concept of Integrated Modelling Environment (IME)
  • 3) Step-by-step approach on a representative example
    • 3.1) Presentation of the «spis project» data structure
    • 3.2) Introduction to the geometrical modelling with Geometry Manager and Gmsh
    • 3.3) Concept of geometrical groups
    • 3.4) Initial and Boundary Conditions (IBC) and material properties attributions and settings
    • 3.5) Meshing and tricks
    • 3.6) Groups conversion and fields mapping
    • 3.7) Global parameters settings
    • 3.8) Simulation launching and control
    • 3.9) Data extraction and analysis
    • 3.10) Presentation of the post-processing tools

10.00 - 10.15: Coffee break

10.15 - 12.30: Part II: SPIS-NUM control: numerical models selection and use

  • 1) General presentation of the SPIS-NUM capabilities
    • Available Documentation
    • “How to” html pages : Controlling Num from UI is the reference document
  • 2) Detailed presentation of :
    • A/ the physics;
    • B/ NUM models and solvers; and
    • C/ HOW TO USE them from UI
    • 2.1) Plasma
      • 2.1.1) Matter dynamics
      • 2.1.2) Matter sources
      • 2.1.3) Field model (E-B)
      • 2.1.4) Volume interactions
      • 2.1.5) Space resolution, time steps and tricks
    • 2.2) Spacecraft
      • 2.2.1) Material properties, including secondary emission and photoemission
      • 2.2.2) Equivalent circuit
      • 2.2.3) Artificial particle sources
      • 2.2.4) Time steps and tricks
      • 2.2.5) Current scalers
    • 2.3) Other features

12.30 - 14.00: Lunch

14.00 - 18.00: Part III: Hands on training

Long Debye length regime : GEO spacecraft simulation

  • 1) Description: worst-case environment, representative spacecraft (eventually in eclipse exit)
  • 2) The physics to catch : inverted potential gradient situation with large negative potentials
  • 3) Defining the simulation settings
    • 3.1) Geometry and mesh settings
    • 3.2) Material properties
    • 3.3) Initial and boundary conditions
    • 3.4) Plasma environment
    • 3.5) Barrier of potential
    • 3.6) Time steps
    • 3.7) Accuracy and efficiency
  • 4) Results interpretation

2nd day

08.00 - 12.00: Short Debye length regime : LEO or Solar Wind simulation

  • 1) Description: spherical probe covered with dielectrics submitted to a dense drifting plasma and solar flux
  • 2) The physics to catch : photoelectron barrier of potential, wake, differential charging
  • 3) Defining the simulations settings
    • 3.1) Mesh resolution
    • 3.2) Boundary conditions
    • 3.3) Plasma model
    • 3.2) Time steps
    • 3.3) Accuracy and efficiency
  • 4) Interpretation of the results

12.00 - 13.30: lunch

13.30 - 17.30: Part IV: Advanced Uses

Example of list of “practical cases” will be defined and may include focused items like:

  • 1) A few advices to define properly an external boundary shape adapted to my model.
  • 2) Some recommendations for plasma models selection.
  • 3) How to define and control a multi-species particle source
  • 4) A possible approach to model a solar array or a thin wire.
  • 5) How can I check my mesh ?
  • 6) How can I process and export my results ?
  • 7) The refined taste to the “numerical steps”.
  • 8) How can I set transitions within the course of the simulation ?

17.30 to end: Part V: Installation and advanced settings

  • 1) Basic installation: But in fact, here is nothing to do!
  • 2) Portability issues: an overview of the settings of the natives components of SPIS
  • 3) Advanced settings: overview of the settings configuration files
  • 4) Some tricks to “optimise SPIS”.


Last edited by julien at Nov 17, 2011 12:21 AM