Modeling of aerodynamic ablation, including the ablation debris flow interactions is of interest to DOD. In particular, ablators are used in ballistic missiles and accurate modeling of ablation process is required for optimization of missile design. Another important aspect is the prediction of optical signatures of ballistic missiles and other objects. Since clusters strongly affect the flow in the vicinity of a hypersonic projectile, the luminous species such as CN will be affected as well. The more commercially-oriented applications are intended for the industry working in the fields of materials fabrication, nano-technology, space technology, MEMS and NEMS. The principal advantage of our product to be developed over Phases I and II is unprecedented physical accuracy of modeling the processes of cluster formation and evolution in non-equilibrium gas environment. To the best of our knowledge, no product of such capability is currently available in the market and we expect high interest and demand. The implementation of our product will allow the user to accurately model physical processes in such technological segments as pulsed laser deposition of thin films, cluster deposition, obtaining of size-selected clusters, micro-thrusters and other space application. This modeling will impart a better understanding of the underlying physics and provide a basis for technology improvement. The principal advantage of our product to be developed over Phases I and II is unprecedented physical accuracy of modeling the processes of particulate interactions within non-equilibrium gas environment. The proposed research will provide information on clustering in terms of spatial distributions of cluster size, kinetic and internal energies, and on the dependence of these distributions on the initial conditions and the reaction types. The product to be developed during Phases I and II is directly applicable to the NASA efforts in computational modeling of the entry and reentry space vehicles under the Aeronautics Research Directorate. It is also applicable to the needs of space exploration program under the Exploration Systems Directorate.
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