Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST
The DSMC/PIC-MC simulation software developed by Fraunhofer IST sets itself apart with an efficient parallelisation schema. All runtime components, including the electric and magnetic field solvers, are parallel implementations. This permits the distribution of the computing load for the gas flow and plasma simulation to any networked computer systems with no bottlenecks. Here a distribution algorithm automatically ensures the optimum utilisation of the CPU resources being used.
Local variations of the computing load across several magnitudes, for instance in case of nozzle flows or glow discharges, can be compensated through dynamic cell resolution and particle weighting known as multiscale approaches. Multiscale approaches and parallelisation support demanding simulation tasks, such as the three-dimensional simulation of magnetron discharges on an industrial scale.
Geometry modelling with finite-element meshes is another special feature of the DSMC/PIC-MC simulation software. Here the finite-element meshes are modelled directly on the regular computational grid of the simulation space. This adequately approximates the model contours without having to give up the efficiency of the regular computational grid. Any CAD program (GMSH, Solid Edge™, Autodesk™ and so on) that supports common output formats such as STEP or IGES can be used for geometry modelling.
Predefined input masks are defined from the finite-element meshes and the simulation parameters are established in these. Possible input errors such as an insufficient cell resolution or time step size are caught by an automatic consistency check. The DSMC/PIC-MC simulation software is subject to ongoing further development in order to ensure its reliability, efficiency and user friendliness.