An improved Z-Transform Discontinuous Galerkin Time Domain Method for nonuniform plasma sheath

The plasma sheath generated during the reentry of a hypersonic vehicle into the atmosphere can absorb or reflect electromagnetic waves, thereby affecting the communication of hypersonic vehicles. Investigating the attenuation and enhancement effects of non-uniform plasma flow fields on electromagnetic scattering is of significant importance. The non-uniform plasma flow field of the hypersonic vehicle was obtained by software ICEM-CFD. To improve computational efficiency, we proposed an improved Z-transform discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (ZT-DGTD) method to study the interaction between electromagnetic waves and non-uniform plasma flow fields. With this method, only one subsidiary variable must be added, which saves memory and increases computational speed. Numerical results show that compared to traditional ZT-DGTD methods, this method achieves a 20.2 % increase in computational efficiency. By this method, we studied the overall enhancement and attenuation effects of the non-uniform plasma flow field on electromagnetic scattering at different frequencies. We also investigated the variations in the electric field amplitude within different regions of the non-uniform plasma flow field under different electromagnetic scattering conditions. Based on the changes in the electric field amplitude in different regions of the flow field, the influence of different regions on electromagnetic scattering was studied. The research methods and ideas in this study have significant reference values and provide a new perspective for studying plasma stealth technology and addressing the “blackout” problem.