Gaseous plume flows in space propulsion

This paper presents a gaskinetic study on high-speed, highly rarefied jets expanding into a vacuum from a cluster of planar or annular exits. Based on the corresponding exact expressions for a planar or annular jet, it is convenient to derive the combined multiple jet flowfield solutions of density and velocity components. For the combined temperature and pressure solutions, extra attention is needed. Several direct simulation Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to validate these analytical solutions. The analytical and numerical solutions are essentially identical for these high Knudsen number jet flows.