Elin Vesper

In my PhD project I study rarefied gas dynamics using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC). My aim is to optimise Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) devices and understand the involved physical processes better.
Before coming to Delft I did my Bachelor in Mechanical and Process Engineering and Master in Mechanics at TU Darmstadt (Germany). 

Research

Machinery and tools often require a coating to avoid corrosion or change its surface properties. Physical Vapour Deposition achieves this by evaporating the coating metal in a chamber, which is connected via a nozzle with a vacuum chamber. A supersonic jet emerges from the nozzle and transports the vapour to a metal sheet where it condenses and forms the coating. Compared to other coating methods Physical Vapour Deposition has a high flexibility regarding thickness and composition for the coating while maintaining a low energy consumption and waste production. My project aims to understand the underlying physics and dependency on process and geometry parameters better. For this purpose a hybrid numerical solver based on a continuum solver and a Discrete Simulation Monte Carlo shall be developed in the open source simulation toolbox OpenFOAM. This shall be used to study the deposition in single and multiple species jets as well as the interaction of multiple jets.