Re: Streamer simulation

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: Streamer simulation


 > Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>
 >
 > Tesla list wrote:
 >  >
 >  > Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
 >  >
 >  > I don't know that a fractal model is optimum (streamer development
isn't
 >  > scale independent, like fractals are), but some sort of cellular
automata
 >  > model might be...
 >
 > Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 34 (2001) 936-946.
 > "Simulation of breakdown in air using cellular automata with streamer
 > to leader transition".
 > Has nice plots of simulated streamers. The references mention several
 > papers about the fractal nature of streamers.

I see that my random thoughts have been anticipated...

 >
 >  > Essentially, you've got chunks of air that are in one of three
states...
 >  > nothing, streamer growing, and streamer fully formed, and then they get
 >  > connected in an essentially random (tree structured) way.  The physics
 >  > going on at the tip of the streamer is pretty much the same, whether
it's
 >  > at the end of a 10cm streamer or a 1m streamer.  Likewise, what's going
on
 >  > inside the developed streamer is essentially the same regardless of
where
 >  > along the streamer it is.
 >
 > The idea in the paper appears to be similar.
I'll have to get it tomorrow at work...

The cellular automata thing is nifty because it can be made very
computationally efficient (as opposed to a big FEM grid or a 2.5 D sim)