使用不同工质的会切磁场等离子体推力器

会切磁场等离子体推力器是一种利用磁镜约束等离子体产生推力的新型推力器,具有寿命长、推力大范围连续可调等优点,在无拖曳控制领域具有较大的应用前景.分别采用Xe,Kr和Ar三种不同工质,开展了会切磁场等离子体推力器实验.首先,对所用的推力器进行了简要的原理和设计介绍;然后,对三种工质的点火电压分别进行了测试,发现Xe是最容易点火成功的,Kr和Ar点火难度较大.在阳极电流、推力、效率和比冲等性能方面,三种工质在同等条件下也存在明显的区别.分析发现,三者的工质利用率高低导致了性能上的差别,通过提升通流密度能够大幅提升Kr和Ar的工质利用率.在羽流结构方面,法拉第测量结果表明三者都存在明显的空心羽流,且离子电流密度峰值出现的角度随着原子量的减小而逐渐减小.     

Influence of channel length on discharge performance of anode layer Hall thruster studied by particle-in-cell simulation

Hall thruster has the advantages of simple structure, high specific impulse, high efficiency, and long service life, and so on. It is suitable for spacecraft attitude control, North and South position keeping, and other track tasks. The anode layer Hall thruster is a kind of Hall thruster. The thruster has a longer anode area and a relatively short discharge channel.In this paper, the effect of the channel length on the performance of the anode layer Hall thruster is simulated by the PIC simulation method. The simulation results show that the change of the channel length has significant effect on the plasma parameters, such as potential and plasma density and so on. The ionization region mainly concentrates at the hollow anode outlet position, and can gradually move toward the channel outlet as the channel length decreases. The collision between the ions and the wall increases with the channel length increasing. So the proper shortening of the channel length can increase the life of the thruster. Besides, the results show that there is a best choice of the channel length for obtaining the best performance. In this paper, thruster has the best performance under a channel length of 5 mm.