EPJD Colloquium - Challenges and opportunities in verification and validation of low temperature plasma simulations and experiments

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Published on 21 May 2021

In the field of plasma physics, simulations are becoming increasingly relied upon to elucidate fundamental plasma phenomena as well as to simulate real-world plasma reactors. This new colloquium published in EPJD provides a description of how one research group (at Sandia National Laboratories) incorporates verification and validation (V&V) processes in their low temperature plasma (LTP) research and development activities.

These V&V activities are applied to a particle-in-cell (PIC), Direction Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) code, Aleph. Many other disciplines have adopted and integrated V&V methodology to a much greater extent than is present in the LTP community. Sandia has a deep V&V culture in many of these other disciplines, and that culture has been driving LTP V&V developments for many years. This paper will introduce the reader to both basic processes, such as using analytic verification problems and testing convergence of numerical methods, as well as more advanced ones that are likely new to the LTP community. For example, the development and maintenance of a Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table (PIRT) has proved extremely useful in organizing technical work to improve code predictivity for complex systems. The PIRT provides a framework in which to asses and track the maturity, availability, and correctness of physical models and their code implementations. In general, a framework for capturing and demonstrating evidence in claiming a scientific basis and predictivity for simulation results is a necessity for high consequence modeling and simulation efforts where significant safety or financial risks exist.