CENTROSPAZIO - A new Italian electric propulsion laboratory

Andrenucci, Mariano

doi:10.2514/6.1990-2661

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In the following, we present the validation of the model capability to accurately describe the plasma flow in Hall thrusters on the standard configuration of the HT5k. This thruster, described in details in [37], is a 5 kW class Hall thruster developed by SITAEL in the past years and extensively characterised. A first validation of the model with the standard thruster configuration is presented in [38], together with predictions made for the HT5k-M.…”

Section: Numerical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The HT5k is a high-power Hall thruster designed to operate with xenon in the 2.5-7.5 kW power range and especially intended for GEO and interplanetary applications [37]. The thruster has a standard configuration with a ceramic channel and an almost radial magnetic field that peaks at the channel exit.…”

Section: Thruster Description and Test Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the same thrust stand, a single axis stand with a double pendulum configuration (see e.g. [37] for a detailed description), was used to assess the thrust generated by the HT5k and the HT5k-M. The different pumping capability and size of the two vacuum facilities introduces small differences in the evaluation of thruster performance.…”

Section: Test Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of the magnetic field configuration on the plasma flow in Hall thrusters

Andreussi¹,

Giannetti²,

Leporini³

et al. 2017

Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion

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In Hall propulsion, the thrust is provided by the acceleration of ions in a plasma generated in a cross-field configuration. Standard thruster configurations have annular channels with an almost radial magnetic field at the channel exit. A potential difference is imposed in the axial direction and the intensity of the magnetic field is calibrated in order to hinder the electron motion, while leaving the ions non-magnetised. Magnetic field lines can be assumed, as a first approximation, as lines of constant electron temperature and of thermalized potential. In typical thruster configurations, the discharge occurs inside a ceramic channel and, due to plasma-wall interactions, the electron temperature is typically low, less than few tens of eV. Hence, the magnetic field lines can be effectively used to tailor the distribution of the electrostatic potential. However, the erosion of the ceramic walls caused by the ion bombardment represents the main limiting factor of the thruster lifetime and new thruster configurations are currently under development. For these configurations, classical first order models of the plasma dynamics fail to grasp the influence of the magnetic topology on the plasma flow. In the present paper, a novel approach to investigate the correlation between magnetic field topology and thruster performance is presented. Due to the anisotropy induced by the magnetic field, the gradients of the plasma properties are assumed to be mainly in the direction orthogonal to the local magnetic field, thus enabling a quasi-one-dimensional description in magnetic coordinates. Theoretical and experimental investigations performed on a 5 kW class Hall thruster with different magnetic field configurations are then presented and discussed.

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Section: Numerical Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Thruster Description and Test Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Test Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

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