感应式脉冲推力器中等离子体加速数值研究

为了分析感应式脉冲放电等离子体推力器中时变电磁场作用下等离子体的放电参数分布及其随着磁场强度变化的影响,引入了利用双曲型散度清除方法的二维轴对称瞬态等离子体流动的磁流体力学数值模型.计算结果表明,随着输入能量的增加,等离子体团出现速度峰值的时刻提前,等离子体中同时存在的异号电流环对其加速具有阻滞作用.等离子体的加速效率随着磁场强度非线性增大,磁场大于某一临界值时(几何构型下峰值磁场强度大于0.45 T),有限空间情况下等离子体的加速效率获得显著提高.     

磁场对螺旋波等离子体波和能量吸收影响的数值研究

本文考察在径向电子数密度呈抛物形分布的情况下,外加稳恒磁场,射频通过螺旋波天线在等离子体中激发电磁波的传播性质.采用线性扰动波假设,数值求解Maxwell方程组,得到80—800 G(1 G=10-4T)磁场条件下等离子体中径向电、磁场强度及能量沉积密度的分布情形.计算结果表明,磁场增大(80→800G)时,螺旋波受到的阻尼较小,可深入等离子体传播;Trivelpiece-Gould(TG)波受到的阻尼增大,在等离子体-真空边界处衰减增强;整体的能量吸收向边界集中.磁感应强度小于100 G时,TG波可深入主等离子体区传播,等离子体径向能量吸收相对均匀.     

A radial non-uniform helicon equilibrium discharge model

Helicon discharges have attracted great attention in the electric propulsion community in recent years. To acquire the equilibrium properties, a self-consistent model is developed, which combines the helicon/Trivelpiece-Gould （TG） waves- plasma interaction mechanism and the plasma flow theory under the confinement of the magnetic field. The calculations reproduce the central peak density phenomenon observed in the experiments. The results show that when operating in the wave coupling mode, high magnetic field strength B0 results in the deviation of the central density versus B0 from the linear relationship, while the density rise becomes flatter as the radiofrequency （rf） input power Prf grows, and the electron temperature Te radial profile is mainly determined by the characteristic of the rf energy deposition. The model could provide suggestions in choosing the B0 and Prf for medium power helicon thrusters.