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CRANE (Chemical ReAction NEtwork tool for plasma chemistry) is a new software developed as part of NSF project 1740310 for the general treatment of plasma chemistry problems with an arbitrary number of reacting plasma species and arbitrary number of plasma reaction pathways. The mathematical kernel of the software is a coupled system of ODE rate equations.

CRANE has been specifically developed as a part of the MOOSE framework to address the non-equilibrium, multi-species reaction needs of Zapdos. In general a CRANE input file follows the same syntax as other MOOSE applications; however, the input file has been streamlined to allow the system of coupled chemical species, rate equations, and rate coefficients to be written into the input file as reaction equations in the form of rate equations, allowing reaction networks to be built in an intuitive, human-readable form.

As a MOOSE application, CRANE inherits the same classes and syntax as the MOOSE framework and can therefore be natively interfaced with a Zapdos plasma simulation. Thus CRANE is designed with two possible use cases:

1. As a standalone software, it is designed to solve a general system of zero-dimensional reaction equations;
2. Coupled into Zapdos, CRANE solves a system of one-dimensional, time-dependent reaction pathways as part of the fluid plasma solver.

The software is capable of utilizing rate coefficients that are either constant or energy-dependent, with rates derived from electron energy distribution function solvers, allowing the inclusion of experimental cross-sections (e.g. such as those from the LX-Cat database) and experimental rate coefficients.