Effect of a magnetic field in simulating the plume field of an anode layer Hall thrusterThe collisional-radiative model for xenon is used to calculate the electron density and temperature, and the atom population distribution in the plasma plume from a xenon Hall thruster. In the calculation, 173 levels of atom population are considered; only the processes of electron induced excitation and deexcitation, and spontaneous decay are simulated. The plasma plume is assumed to be optically thin. Consequently, the reasonable parameters of plasma plume along the outside center line of the thruster channel are obtained by making the calculated emission spectrum corresponding to measured ones and based on the atomic data available on site and by codes.
Theoretical analysis and calculation show that applying a magnetic field in a microwave plasma thruster operating at 2.45GHz can improve the thruster performance, whereby an electron cyclotron resonant layer at thruster startup state contributes to the increase of microwave energy dissipated in plasma, and a strong magnetic field up to 0.5T can increase the peak temperature of inside plasma when the thruster operates in steady state. Experimental measurements of the thruster with applied field and operating on argon gas show high coupling efficiency. Plasma plume diagnostics deduce a high degree of gas ionization in the thruster cavity. This shows the feasibility of operating a microwave plasma thruster with an applied magnetic field.
A microwave thruster system that can convert microwave power directly to thrust without a gas propellant is developed. In the system, a cylindrical tapered resonance cavity and a magnetron microwave source are used respectively as the thruster cavity and the energy source to generate the electromagnetic wave. The wave is radiated into and then reflected from the cavity to form a pure standing wave with non-uniform electromagnetic pressure distribution. Consequently, a net electromagnetic thrust exerted on the axis of the thruster cavity appears, which is demonstrated through theoretical calculation based on the electromagnetic theory. The net electromagnetic thrust is also experimentally measured in the range from 70 mN to 720 mN when the microwave output power is from 80 W to 2500 W.
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