People
Principal Investigator
Shantanu Pawar — Department of Mechanical Engineering, PVG's College of Engineering, Technology and Management, Pune, India.
Profile
Author of the Virtual Ion-Optics Testbed (VIOT)
The VIOT research program is a multiscale assessment of carbon-nanomaterial accelerator-grid coatings for charge-exchange (CEX) erosion mitigation in the NASA NSTAR ion thruster.
Research stack:
- Plasma Physics: GPU PIC-MCC (Particle-in-Cell with Monte Carlo Collisions) simulations.
- Atomistic Modeling: LAMMPS AIREBO crystalline Molecular Dynamics for ion-surface interactions.
- Computational Engineering: Custom 3D Poisson solvers and DSMC (Direct Simulation Monte Carlo) pipelines.
Program Timeline
2024
Phase I: MATLAB prototype.
Phase II: VIOT-2 GPU PIC-MCC prototype.
15 defects discovered.
2025
Phase III: VIOT-3 axisymmetric production framework. 70/70 tests pass.
Phase IV: VIOT-4 3D + DSMC + MD framework initiated.
2026
Phase V: Consolidated manuscript (35 pages).
VIOT-4 core complete.
Campaign results finalized.
Documentation
17 files
Every number, parameter, and algorithm
Complete research record
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
| 01_Project_Overview.md | Research question, H1–H4, scope, timeline |
| 02_Data_Campaign_Results.md | 36 campaign simulations, raw erosion, LEF derivation |
| 03_Data_EBS_Analysis.md | 10-seed ensemble, barrier physics, LEF_EBS |
| 04_Data_Yield_Tables.md | 7 sputter-yield tables, RustBCA + LAMMPS parameters |
| 05_Data_Neutral_DSMC.md | Analytic view factor vs DSMC benchmark, 44.4% deviation |
| 06_Physics_and_Math.md | Every governing equation, constant, and derivation |
| 07_Codebase_VIOT3.md | Axisymmetric framework: modules, API |
| 08_Codebase_VIOT4.md | 3D framework: DSMC, MD pipeline, 3D Poisson |
| 09_Verification_and_Tests.md | 70+2 tests, assertions, all results |
| 10_Results_Summary.md | Every headline result with its provenance chain |
| 11_Empirical_Reference_Data.md | NSTAR ELT data, yields, geometries |
| 12_Framework_Comparison.md | VIOT vs. Orbitrap, ONERA |
| 13-17 | Manuscript history, limitations, reproducibility, references |