Modeling of Stationary Plasma Thruster-100 Thruster Plumes and Implications for Satellite Design

Oh, David Y.; Hastings, Daniel E.; Marrese, Colleen M.; Haas, James M.; Gallimore, Alec D.

doi:10.2514/2.5432

Cited by 46 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…30,33 Several experimental and computational studies have pointed out that the electrons are isothermal only in very local area, while in large plume area, there is a big variation of the electron temperature in the plume plasma of ion thrusters and Hall thrusters. 5,6 So, many researchers believe that the electrons should cool down along the axis and radius due to the plasma expansion, and thus, the isothermal barometric law method is not valid over large radius.…”

Section: E Electron Temperatures Derived From the "Poly-tropic Law" mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many researchers believe that the isothermal assumption is valid only in very local area, 30,31 otherwise one should consider that the electrons being measured are non-isothermal over the whole plume plasma. In addition, early experimental results also showed that the electron temperature decreases with increasing radius because the electrons should be cooling down during the plasma expansion over large radial distances.…”

Section: B Consideration About the Non-isothermal Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…30,31 The underlying assumptions of the barometric law for data interpretation are (1) the pressure obeys the ideal gas law, (2) the plasma is quasi-neutrality, and (3) the electrons are un-magnetized, collisionless, and isothermal. 32 The "barometric law" method depicts the relations between the ion density n i , plasma potential V s , and electron temperature T e in different radial positions, as expressed in Eq.…”

Section: Electron Temperatures Derived From the "Barometric Law" Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electron temperature measurement in Maxwellian non-isothermal beam plasma of an ion thruster

Zhang

Tang

Kong

et al. 2015

Review of Scientific Instruments

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Published electron temperature profiles of the beam plasma from ion thrusters reveal many divergences both in magnitude and radial variation. In order to know exactly the radial distributions of electron temperature and understand the beam plasma characteristics, we applied five different experimental approaches to measure the spatial profiles of electron temperature and compared the agreement and disagreement of the electron temperature profiles obtained from these techniques. Experimental results show that the triple Langmuir probe and adiabatic poly-tropic law methods could provide more accurate space-resolved electron temperature of the beam plasma than other techniques. Radial electron temperature profiles indicate that the electrons in the beam plasma are non-isothermal, which is supported by a radial decrease (∼2 eV) of electron temperature as the plume plasma expands outward. Therefore, the adiabatic "poly-tropic law" is more appropriate than the isothermal "barometric law" to be used in electron temperature calculations. Moreover, the calculation results show that the electron temperature profiles derived from the "poly-tropic law" are in better agreement with the experimental data when the specific heat ratio (γ) lies in the range of 1.2-1.4 instead of 5/3.

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Section: E Electron Temperatures Derived From the "Poly-tropic Law" mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Consideration About the Non-isothermal Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Electron Temperatures Derived From the "Barometric Law" Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electron temperature measurement in Maxwellian non-isothermal beam plasma of an ion thruster

Zhang

Tang

Kong

et al. 2015

Review of Scientific Instruments

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“…Extensive research on electric propulsion (EP) has been carried out in the United States and Europe and many findings were achieved [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, the research of EP is still at a low level in China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison between particle simulation and measurements of a stationary plasma thruster plume

Qian

Wang

2008

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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This article is attempted to study the plume characteristics of a stationary plasma thruster (SPT). First, electron density, electron temperature, and current density of a SPT plume in a chamber are measured experimentally by a double Langmuir probe. Then, a numerical model based on particle-in-cell and direct simulation Monte Carlo hybrid method is employed to simulate the flow field. The simulation is verified by comparing the computational results and the experimental data. The research indicates that the electron temperature of the flow field is ∼2 eV and the electron number density is ∼2.5 × 10 16 − 5 × 10 15 m −3 at the centre-line and at a distance of 0.3-1.0 m downstream of the thruster exit. The divergence angle of the researched SPT plume is ∼30 • and the influence of backpressure is observable at the wings of the flow field.

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“…The first efforts to use a combination of the PIC and DSMC methods to model the plumes of Hall thrusters were made by Oh et al 7 and this approach has formed the basis for subsequent work. 8 ' 12 In general, the PIC method accelerates charged particles through applied and self-generated electric fields in a self-consistent manner.…”

Section: Plasma Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hall thruster far field plume modeling and comparison to Express flight data

Boyd¹

2002

40th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting &Amp; Exhibit

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Hall thrusters are an attractive form of electric propulsion that are being developed and implemented to replace chemical systems for many on orbit propulsion tasks on communications satellites. One concern in the use of these devices is the possible damage their plumes may cause to the host spacecraft. Computer models of Hall thruster plumes play an important role in integration of these devices onto spacecraft as the space environment is not easily reproduced in ground testing facilities. In this paper, a hybrid particle-fluid model of a Hall thruster plume is applied to model the SPT-100 thrusters used on the Russian Express satellites. The emphasis of the paper is on making assessment of the model through direct comparison with measurements of ion current density and ion energy distributions taken on board Express spacecraft.These data challenge the model in two ways. First, they represent the first set of Hall thruster plume measurements obtained in space, whereas the computer models have been developed based on measurements taken in ground-based facilities. Second, most of the data measurement locations are several meters from the thruster requiring careful consideration of the plume far-field.

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Modeling of Stationary Plasma Thruster-100 Thruster Plumes and Implications for Satellite Design

Cited by 46 publications

References 15 publications

Electron temperature measurement in Maxwellian non-isothermal beam plasma of an ion thruster

Electron temperature measurement in Maxwellian non-isothermal beam plasma of an ion thruster

Comparison between particle simulation and measurements of a stationary plasma thruster plume

Hall thruster far field plume modeling and comparison to Express flight data

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