Development of Reduced Chemistry Models for High Enthalpy and Plasma flows

This paper considers the development of reduced chemistry models for high enthalpy and plasma flows using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based methods. Starting from detailed chemistry models, such as multi-temperature and collisional-radiative formulations, a reduction of the variable set (species mass fractions and temperatures) is proposed by projecting the full set on a reduced basis made up of its principal components. Consequently, an important reduction of calculation time is obtained as the governing flow equations are solved for these principal components only. This approach originates from the combustion field, where manifold generated principal component analysis (MG-PCA) has been developed as a successful reduction technique. In this work MG-PCA has been implemented and verified on shock tube simulations for argon plasma based on an electronic specific detailed chemistry model. The method has been validated with experimental results from UTIAS (University of Toronto, Insitute for Aerospace Studies).