PIT Mark V design

Lovberg, R. H.; Dailey, C. L.

doi:10.2514/6.1991-3571

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Pulsed inductive thrusters are commonly studied with the use of a semi-empirical circuit model coupled to a one dimensional momentum equation [2]. This circuit is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Inductive Accelerator Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An expression for the mutual inductance as a function of current sheet axial position has been empirically determined [2] for a half-cone angle of 90…”

Section: Inductive Accelerator Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pulsed inductive plasma thrusters [1][2][3] are spacecraft propulsion devices in which electrical energy is capacitively stored and then discharged through an inductive coil. The thruster is electrodeless, with a timevarying current in the coil interacting with a plasma covering the face of the coil to induce a plasma current.…”

Section: Nomenclaturēmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thrusters in this class have operated at high energy per pulse, and by increasing the pulse rate they offer the potential to process very high levels of power using a single thruster. The capacitors in some inductive accelerators, like the Pulsed Inductive Thruster (PIT) [1][2][3], must be charged to high voltages so that the induced fields can first ionize the propellant. One way to alleviate this high voltage requirement is to partially ionize the propellant in front of the inductive coil such that the induced electric field only needs to perform an under-voltage breakdown of already partially-ionized propellant [5], allowing for a lower initial charge voltage on the capacitors.…”

Section: Nomenclaturēmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry and Current Sheet Trajectory of a Conical Theta Pinch Pulsed Inductive Plasma Accelerator

Hallock¹,

Polzin²,

Bonds³

et al. 2011

47th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference &Amp;amp; Exhibit

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“…Pulsed inductive thrusters are commonly studied with the use of a semi-empirical circuit model coupled to a one dimensional momentum equation [2]. This circuit is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Inductive Accelerator Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An expression for the mutual inductance as a function of current sheet axial position has been empirically determined [2] for a half-cone angle of 90…”

Section: Inductive Accelerator Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nomenclaturēmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nomenclaturēmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry and Current Sheet Trajectory of a Conical Theta Pinch Pulsed Inductive Plasma Accelerator

Hallock¹,

Polzin²,

Bonds³

et al. 2011

47th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference &Amp;amp; Exhibit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Inductive pulsed plasma thrusters [1][2][3] are spacecraft propulsion devices in which electrical energy is capacitively stored and then discharged through an inductive coil. The thruster is electrodeless, with a timevarying current in a coil interacting with a plasma covering the face of the coil to induce a plasma current.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry on the Operating Characteristics of an Inductive Pulsed Plasma Thruster

Hallock¹,

Polzin

Kimberlin

et al. 2012

48th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference &Amp;amp; Exhibit

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Operational characteristics of two separate inductive thrusters with conical theta pinch coils of different cone angles are explored through thrust stand measurements and timeintegrated, unfiltered photography. Trends in impulse bit measurements indicate that, in the present experimental configuration, the thruster with the inductive coil possessing a smaller cone angle produced larger values of thrust, in apparent contradiction to results of a previous thruster acceleration model. Areas of greater light intensity in photographs of thruster operation are assumed to qualitatively represent locations of increased current density. Light intensity is generally greater in images of the thruster with the smaller cone angle when compared to those of the thruster with the larger half cone angle for the same operating conditions. The intensity generally decreases in both thrusters for decreasing mass flow rate and capacitor voltage. The location of brightest light intensity shifts upstream for decreasing mass flow rate of propellant and downstream for decreasing applied voltage. Recognizing that there typically exists an optimum ratio of applied electric field to gas pressure with respect to breakdown efficiency, this result may indicate that the optimum ratio was not achieved uniformly over the coil face, leading to non-uniform and incomplete current sheet formation in violation of the model assumption of immediate formation where all the injected propellant is contained in a magnetically-impermeable current sheet.

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Numerical simulation on the operational characteristics of the pulsed inductive acceleration

Cheng

Xia

2018

Contributions to Plasma Physics

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To analyse the ionization and acceleration properties of an inductive plasma excited by a pulsed current flowing through the planar coil, the extended GLM formulations of the MHD (EGLM-MHD) model, combined with the high-temperature thermodynamic and transport model, is employed to simulate the characteristics of the flow. The two-dimensional axisymmetric calculation captures the generation, growth, and acceleration of the current sheet, and the process is completed in the first half period. The sheet is mainly comprised of lower ionization level ions in the front and higher level ions at the back, and the density is one order higher than that of the residual plasma on the coil surface. As the abscissa value of the sheet is larger than the decoupling distance, a reversed flow emerges, generating a backward impulse, and the negative velocity can be more than 15 km/s at peak intensity B 0 = 0.5 T. In the second 1/4 period, the magnetic field and current density distribute non-linearly on the surface and regularly in the sheet, caused by the reversing of the changing rate of the magnetic field and the particles' radial diffusion. The results at different intensities show that, for the same coil size, the time at which the maximum velocity V max appears is advanced as the intensity increases, and V max can be greater than 20 km/s above 0.5 T.

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PIT Mark V design

Cited by 21 publications

References 1 publication

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry and Current Sheet Trajectory of a Conical Theta Pinch Pulsed Inductive Plasma Accelerator

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry and Current Sheet Trajectory of a Conical Theta Pinch Pulsed Inductive Plasma Accelerator

Effect of Inductive Coil Geometry on the Operating Characteristics of an Inductive Pulsed Plasma Thruster

Numerical simulation on the operational characteristics of the pulsed inductive acceleration

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