2-D Extended Fluid Model of Applied-Field Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster With Solid and Hollow Cathodes

Li, Min; Liu, Hui; Ning, Zhiliang; Ren, Junxue; Tang, Haibin; Yu, Daren; Демидов, Е. В.; Eliseev, S. I.; Kudryavtsev, A. A.

doi:10.1109/tps.2015.2456151

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Model trend results were calculated using equations ( 20) and (21). The electron temperature used in equation ( 20) equals 2 eV as measured by Myers [27], and the electron number density equals ~10 20 m −3 as simulated by Li [28]. The exper imental and computational results are presented following.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing the effective voltage in applied-field MPD thrusters

Tang

Wang

et al. 2018

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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Increasing the effective voltage is proposed to improve applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters (AF-MPDTs) efficiency. An analytical model for both effective voltage and thrust is presented and discussed on the basis of the generalized Ohm’s law. According to such a model, the effective voltage contributes to plasma acceleration and measures can be taken to affect it, including adjusting the fraction of cathode gas injection, applied magnetic field strength and discharge current. In order to verify the model, experiments were conducted on the conditions of stable operation of a 10 kW AF-MPDT. The results showed that discharge current affected thruster efficiency mainly by enhancing the back electromotive effect in plasma acceleration processes. The thrust efficiency was enhanced by an average of 9.1% by raising discharge current from 90 A to 180 A. The fraction of cathode gas injection mainly affected the resistive and Hall effect, and the thrust efficiency was enhanced by an average of 7.3% by increasing the fraction of cathode gas injection from 0.1 to 0.9. The applied magnetic field influenced the thruster performance by enhancing both the resistive and Hall effect and the back electromotive effect. The thrust efficiency was increased by an average of 3.0% by raising the applied magnetic field strength from 0.05 T to 0.17 T. It was found that the plasma acceleration of AF-MPDT was dominated by effective voltage, and increasing the effective voltage was an effective and comprehensive way to improve thruster performance.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing the effective voltage in applied-field MPD thrusters

Tang

Wang

et al. 2018

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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“…The two terms of the right side are joule heating and energy loss due to plasmachemical process, respectively [24].…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature measurement and simulation analysis of heaterless hollow cathode during start-up process

Han¹,

An²,

Liu³

et al. 2022

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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Monochromatic radiation thermometry is used to quantify temperature distribution during the start-up process for a heaterless hollow cathode. A transparent cathode is designed to facilitate the transmission of thermally and spontaneously radiated photons from the interior of the structure and their reception by the detection equipment. The relative radiation intensities can be obtained by the developed measurement equipment, which consists of an sCMOS camera and a 780 nm narrow-band filter, and then transformed into temperature distributions calibrated by a two-color pyrometer. The current and voltage characteristics of the anode and keeper and plasma image captured by the high-speed camera are used to analyze the thermal evolution mechanism. A 2-D extended fluid model coupling with a thermal model is also developed and used to help clarify the thermal deposition variation at different locations. These results provide further support for the hypothesis that thermal deposition of ions and electrons, thermal conduction, and thermal radiation all affect the rate of change in temperature of various components.

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“…They obtained a set of limits to steady state plasma flow, and concluded that the Alfvén Mach number can be used to determine whether the flow will be steady or unsteady. Li et al used a more general multiphysics tool, COMSOL, to create a two-dimensional model of an AF-MPDT [117]. They used the Poisson equation to solve for the electric potential, meaning that the effects of plasma currents on magnetic field were not taken into account.…”

Section: Magnetohydrodynamic Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Central-Cathode Electrostatic Thruster Featuring a High-Temperature Superconducting Applied Field Module

Acheson

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In recent decades, advances in electric propulsion have enabled the development of novel mission designs for space exploration. However, future deep space mission payloads of unprecedented mass will require advances in high thrust, high specific impulse propulsion. To achieve higher thrust density than traditional ion thrusters or Hall effect thrusters, novel designs for central-cathode electrostatic thrusters (CC-ESTs) and applied field magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters incorporate an applied magnetic field module which is used to accelerate plasma. The high thrust density of such designs makes them suitable candidates for further research and development for space deployment.Crucial performance metrics of such thrusters have been shown to increase as the applied magnetic field increases, and high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets show promise as low-power, high applied field modules. Both the strength and the profile of the applied magnetic field are closely tied to thruster performance. This raises the question- which magnetic fields improve thruster performance and why?In this thesis, the impact of the magnetic field strength and profile on the performance of a plasma thruster is investigated. Numerical modelling of a central-cathode electrostatic thruster (CC-EST) was performed with particular regard to the detachment of plasma from magnetic field lines. This modelling was conducted alongside an experimental campaign to manufacture and integrate a high temperature superconducting applied field module with a CC-EST to characterise the HTS CC-EST performance. CC-EST performance was measured at central bore fields exceeding 1 T and with two different magnetic field profiles. These efforts have led to a novel understanding of the scaling of performance parameters in CC-EST with magnetic field, and how the performance of the thruster might be tailored to a specific application.

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2-D Extended Fluid Model of Applied-Field Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster With Solid and Hollow Cathodes

Cited by 13 publications

References 33 publications

Increasing the effective voltage in applied-field MPD thrusters

Increasing the effective voltage in applied-field MPD thrusters

Temperature measurement and simulation analysis of heaterless hollow cathode during start-up process

A Central-Cathode Electrostatic Thruster Featuring a High-Temperature Superconducting Applied Field Module

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