Scaling Design and Experimental Study on Hall Thrusters with Curved Magnetic Field

Abstract

The existing scaling theories of Hall thrusters are based on the hypothesis of a one-dimensional straight magnetic field, which is not suitable for the design of modern thrusters with a two-dimensional curved magnetic field. In this paper, using the equation analysis method, we derive new similarity criterions in a curved magnetic field by analyzing the momentum equations of charged particles; consequently, we propose a new modeling design method for Hall thrusters with a constant discharge voltage. This method is further validated by experiments. A designed model with a power of 1.5 kW is made based on our proposed method from a prototype model with a power of 1 kW. The experimental results demonstrate that these two thrusters have little differences in performance and physical processes as expected from the scaling. Therefore, our method is well suited for designing a Hall thruster with a curved magnetic field.

Simulation study on the influence of magnetic field in the near-anode region on anode power deposition of ATON-type Hall thruster

“…The boundaries of the numerical simulation model are shown in figure 3. The nonmagnetic cover (the numbers are 1, 9), dielectric (2, 3, 7, 8), anode (4, 5, 6), cathode (11,12), free-space boundary (10, 13) and symmetry boundary (14) are shown respectively. The secondary electron emission model on all ceramic walls is considered, and the cathode potential was set to 0 V, the PIC calculation was performed for a discharge voltage of 300 V and a propellant mass flow of 3.9 mg s −1 .…”

“…Magnetic field is an effective means to control the motion of electrons. Whether inside or outside the thruster channel, the change of magnetic field will affect the distribution of plasma parameters [13,14]. In particular, the electrons in the near-anode region are mostly low-energy electrons [15], which are easy to magnetize by the magnetic field.…”

Radial scale effect on the performance of low-power cylindrical Hall plasma thrusters

“…Generally, the sub-kilowatt class low-power Hall thrusters are designed by scaling down of the well optimized, larger Hall thrusters. [2][3][4] Scaling laws for conventional annular thrusters (AHTs) have been studied [5][6][7][8][9][10] with respect to the mass flow rate and anode power, and applied to develop AHTs with various power levels. The small physical dimension of the conventional Hall thrusters, however, leads to difficulty in achieving an optimal magnetic field because of limited space for magnetic poles and/or heat shields.…”