径向磁场对霍尔推力器性能影响的数值模拟研究

霍尔推力器由于推力密度大、结构简单等特点,在商业航天领域具有广泛的应用前景.为了进一步提升小功率霍尔推力器的性能,克服低轨卫星用小功率霍尔推力器性能受限于输入功率和最大磁场强度的问题,本文利用数值模拟和理论分析方法研究了霍尔推力器放电通道中径向磁场分布对推力器性能的影响.在轴向磁场分布和最大径向磁场强度一定的情况下,通过改变径向磁场梯度实现径向磁场对推力器性能影响的研究.结果表明,在放电参数、推进剂流率以及轴向磁场不变的情况下,加速区的电势随着径向距离的增加而减小.因此,靠近推力器放电通道内壁侧的径向磁场梯度越大,离子沿着轴向漂移到达推力器出口的动能越大,推力器的推力越大.本文的研究结果为霍尔推力器的磁场设计,性能优化提供了理论支撑.     

真空背压对霍尔推力器放电特性影响的实验研究

真空背压的变化会改变进入霍尔推力器放电通道内的背景气体量,对工质的电离、电子的传导等物理过程产生影响,从而进一步影响到推力器的宏观放电特性.为分析真空背压对推力器放电的影响规律,通过向真空罐输入流量可控的氪气改变真空背压,在不同真空背压下测量通道内原子、离子的发光特性以及出口处离子流的伏安特性.分析结果表明:背景气体返流对通道内工质放电过程具有全局性的影响,提高背压会使通道内的电子温度降低、电离效率降低,并会在通道内形成一个新的电离区,且背压越高,该电离区距推力器阳极越近.     

强场和弱场侧超声分子束注入对加料的影响

报道了HL-2A装置最新的实验结果,讨论并研究了超声分子束的注入位置对分子束在等离子体中的消融和穿透的影响,其中包括电离后的分子束粒子在磁场梯度作用和 E × B 漂移下的加速或减速及由此形成的冷通道效应.研究结果表明,磁场梯度和 E × B 漂移对于超声分子束的加料效果、消融和穿透有着重要的作用.强场侧注入可使电离后的电子和离子更深地进入等离子体芯部.这些研究对于更好地理解超声分子束与等离子体的相互作用和优化设计加料系统有一定作用.     

应用于电推进的碘工质电子回旋共振等离子体源

电子回旋共振(electron cyclotron resonance, ECR)源具有无需内电极、低气压电离、等离子体密度较高和结构紧凑等优点,适用于小功率电推进.因此,研究小功率碘工质ECR等离子体源具有重要意义.本文首先设计了一套耐腐蚀且可以均衡稳定输出碘蒸汽的储供系统;然后完成了耐碘腐蚀ECR推力器设计,利用耐腐蚀的同轴谐振腔结构将微波馈送到推力器,并将通道磁场变为会切型磁场以产生更多ECR层;最终联合点火实验成功,成为国际上首个可以用于电推进的ECR电离碘工质等离子体源.分析实验和静磁场、微波电场分布发现,小功率、低流量下的不稳定等离子体羽流闪烁由寻常波电子等离子体共振加热和非寻常波ECR加热模式之间的转化引起.高流量下电离率下降是由电子损失、壁面损失和碘工质电负性导致.并依据此原理提出了改进方案.放电后等离子体源没有明显损伤,说明具备长寿命潜力.此项工作初步证实了小功率碘工质ECR电推进方案可行.     

外磁场作用下的磁等离子体动力学过程仿真

磁等离子体动力学推力器是空间高功率电推进装置的典型代表,磁等离子体动力学过程是其核心工作机制.为深入理解外磁场对其工作特性的影响,本文采用粒子云(particle in cell,PIC)方法结合基于自相似准则的缩比模型,进行外加磁场作用下磁等离子体动力学推力器工作过程的建模仿真,通过与实验结果对比验证模型和方法的可靠性,并重点分析推力器点火启动过程的等离子特性参数分布,以及外磁场和阴极电流对推力器工作性能的影响.研究结果表明:阴阳极放电电弧构建是推力器启动和高效工作的关键步骤;外磁场强度较低工况不利于构建稳定放电电弧,等离子体束流集中于轴线附近,推力主要产生机制是自身场加速;外磁场强度较高时,阴阳极放电电弧稳定,推力产生主要机制是涡旋加速,推力、比冲随外磁场强度线性增大;推力器效率随阴极电流和外磁场强度增大而增大;放电电压随阴极电流增大而增大,但随外磁场强度的增大表现出先减小后增大的趋势.     

外磁场作用下的磁等离子体动力学过程仿真

磁等离子体动力学推力器是空间高功率电推进装置的典型代表,磁等离子体动力学过程是其核心工作机制.为深入理解外磁场对其工作特性的影响,本文采用粒子云(particle in cell,PIC)方法结合基于自相似准则的缩比模型,进行外加磁场作用下磁等离子体动力学推力器工作过程的建模仿真,通过与实验结果对比验证模型和方法的可靠性,并重点分析推力器点火启动过程的等离子特性参数分布,以及外磁场和阴极电流对推力器工作性能的影响.研究结果表明:阴阳极放电电弧构建是推力器启动和高效工作的关键步骤;外磁场强度较低工况不利于构建稳定放电电弧,等离子体束流集中于轴线附近,推力主要产生机制是自身场加速;外磁场强度较高时,阴阳极放电电弧稳定,推力产生主要机制是涡旋加速,推力、比冲随外磁场强度线性增大;推力器效率随阴极电流和外磁场强度增大而增大;放电电压随阴极电流增大而增大,但随外磁场强度的增大表现出先减小后增大的趋势.     

20 cm氙离子推力器放电室性能优化

束流离子生产成本和推进剂利用率是表征离子推力器放电室性能的重要参数。在考虑不改变放电室几何结构、磁场分布并保持离子推力器比冲和效率的前提下,利用一维经验分析模型对兰州空间技术物理研究所研制的LIPS-200离子推力器放电室性能进行了优化分析,以实现推力器的推力从40 mN提高到60 mN的目标要求。分析结果表明,提高放电室推进剂流率至2.06 mg/s,放电室内放电电流维持在6.9 A,放电室内平均氙离子密度达到2.1671017 m-3时,可以保证引出1.2 A的束流,推力器达到60 mN的推力。与之对应的推进剂利用率为92%,束流离子生产成本约为188.515 W/A,相比推力40 mN时,推进剂利用率为88%、束流离子生产成本为188.29 W/A的情况,放电室性能有所提高。另外,放电室性能优化过程中其鞘层电位始终保持在3.80~6.65 eV范围内。     

霍尔推力器放电通道溅射腐蚀计算

为了预示霍尔推力器的寿命,建立了推力器粒子束放电通道的2维电磁场模型,模拟的推进剂为氙。利用PIC方法跟踪粒子在电磁场中的运动。磁场的求解采用拉普拉斯方程,电场的求解采用泊松方程。电子由阴极喷入通道,并在电磁场中与原子发生电离碰撞生成离子。在跟踪离子的过程中记录下撞击到内外壁面的离子个数、角度和能量。利用记录下的参数进行腐蚀计算,得到当溅射阈值能量分别为10,20,30,40,50 eV时通道壁面的腐蚀速率。推力器放电通道出口附近的最大腐蚀速率约为1.7×10-9 m/s。     

30 cm口径离子推力器磁场设计

为了对30 cm口径离子推力器的磁场设计提出合理建议,研究了四极磁场结构下,不同尺寸的磁极宽度和磁极间距对磁极表面磁场强度和放电室电子约束长度的影响,并利用Maxwell-3D磁场分析软件得到柱段和锥段永磁体分别呈30,60和90夹角时的放电室磁场强度分布,根据不同磁场强度计算了电子温度、离子密度以及电离率等推力器放电参数。结果表明,当推力器放电电压为30 V时,磁极长度设计为0.008 m且磁极间距取为0.12 m,电子约束路径大约为50 m;柱段和锥段永磁体分别呈30,60和90夹角时,放电室磁场等势线基本在0.002~0.005 T之间;永磁体夹角为60时磁场分布和磁空区相比30和90夹角更为合理,此时的电子温度约在2~6 eV,等离子体密度约在41017~81017 m-3,电子碰撞频率比率约在0.2~1.8范围内。     

离子推力器栅极透过率径向分布特性研究

栅极系统是离子推力器的主要组件,其透过率特性对推力器的效率和推力具有重要影响.为了进一步优化栅极性能和有效评估离子推力器效率,对离子推力器栅极透过率径向分布进行研究.采用particle-In-CellMonte Carlo Collision数值仿真方法对束流引出过程进行了模拟.分析了屏栅、加速栅以及栅极系统的透过率随栅孔引出束流离子数量的变化关系,结合放电室出口离子密度分布,进而分别得到屏栅透过率、加速栅透过率和栅极系统透过率的径向分布特性,最后进行实验验证.研究结果表明:屏栅透过率径向分布具有中心对称性,在推力器中心有最小值,从中心沿着径向逐渐增大;加速栅透过率径向分布与屏栅透过率变化趋势相反;栅极系统透过率受加速栅透过率的影响很小,其径向分布与屏栅透过率径向分布相近;离子推力器栅极总透过率随着束流增大而缓慢减小.研究结果可为离子推力器栅极优化提供参考.     

Study of low‐frequency oscillations in a double‐stage Hall thruster

The characteristics of low‐frequency oscillations of double‐stage Hall thrusters are quite different from those of conventional single‐stage Hall thrusters. In this paper, the effects of double‐stage discharge on the low‐frequency oscillations are experimentally investigated. The results indicate that the amplitude significantly decreases with increasing magnetic field strength and voltage during the ionization stage. Meanwhile, data analysis reveals that ionization occurs in both stages and that the transport ion current between the two stages is the key factor that affects the amplitude and main frequency of the oscillations. Two new processes, namely the ion transport and ion recombination caused by double‐stage discharge, are found to be relevant to the change in the current oscillations. To summarize, the ionization stage relieves the oscillations in the acceleration stage, leading to a reduction in the amplitude of the discharge current.     

The Effect of Magnetic Mirror on Near Wall Conductivity in Hall Thrusters

The effect of magnetic mirror on near wall conductivity is studied in the acceleration region of Hall thrusters. The electron dynamics process in the plasma is described by test particle method, in which electrons are randomly emitted from the centerline towards the inner wall of the channel. It is found that the effective collision coefficient, i.e. the rate of electrons colliding with the wall, changes dramatically with the magnetic mirror effect being considered; and that it decreases further with the increase of magnetic mirror ratio to enhance the electron mobility accordingly. In particular, under anistropic electron velocity distribution conditions, the magnetic mirror effect becomes even more prominent. Furthermore, due to decrease in magnetic mirror ratio from the exhaust plane to the anode in Hall thrusters, the axial gradient of electron mobility with magnetic mirror effect is greater than without it. The magnetic mirror effects on electron mobility are derived analytically and the results are found in agreement with the simulation. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

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

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 (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Effect of permanent magnet configuration on discharge characteristics in cylindrical Hall thrusters

Magnetic field design is important in cylindrical Hall thrusters and using permanent magnets to generate magnetic field is very promising in the future. In two typical permanent magnet configurations (i.e., ring and cylindrical configurations) of cylindrical Hall thrusters, discharge characteristics are compared in this paper through the experiments and simulations. The study shows that the cylindrical configuration can bring about higher thruster performance in the same working condition. The reason is that the potential drop of the cylindrical configuration is mainly concentrated in the channel, which is beneficial for the electrons to obtain energy to promote the ionization of the propellant. However, the voltage regulation range of the cylindrical configuration is lower because the anode is more easily overheated.     

Effects of Coupling Oscillations on the Electron Conductivity of Hall Thrusters

It is known that the static magnetic field of a Hall thruster remains unchanged with the product of coil current and coil turn kept constant. This is called the ampere‐turns equivalence principle, which is used in the static magnetic field design of Hall thrusters. It is found that the discharge characteristic is different with the same static magnetic field which is formed by the same ampere‐turns but different coil turns. The effects of the fluctuating magnetic field on the static magnetic field are studied experimentally and theoretically, and the effective collision frequency is calculated based on the dispersion relation of coupling oscillations and the estimation of the fluctuating magnetic field. Results indicate that the different coil turns are accompanied by different coupling intensities which lead to different magnetic field fluctuations. The different magnetic field fluctuations cause differences in the effective electron collision frequency and therefore the electron conductivity and the discharge characteristic of Hall thrusters (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

磁场强度对霍尔推力器放电特性影响的实验研究

为探索霍尔推力器通道内优化磁场的标准,本文研究了磁场强度对其放电特性的影响规律.通过在保持磁场形貌不变（“聚焦”形）下改变磁场强度的大小,使用朗缪尔探针、光谱仪等测量手段分析了工作于不同磁安特性曲线段的推力器放电特性.研究表明：当磁场强度小于优化值时,电子横越磁场的传导以近壁传导机制为主;反之,当磁场强度大于优化值时,放电电流反常变化,而现有的电子输运传导机制不能解释这种现象. 关键词： 霍尔推力器 磁场强度 放电特性     

Study on Similarity Criteria of Hall Effect Thrusters

The scaling design of Hall effect thrusters is based on similarity criteria. Up to now, few of the similarity criteria proposed concern about the inside physical processes of the thruster except Melikov‐Morozov similarity criterion which embodies the ionization of propellant. As many other significant processes, such as electron conduction, ion acceleration and energy exchange, are out of consideration, it is far from enough to direct the thruster design appropriately at present. Therefore, in this paper, we have deduced out many new similarity criteria by analyzing the neutral continuity equation, the ion/electron momentum equations and the electron energy equation with the equation analysis method. By further comparing the magnitudes of source terms of those equations, we obtain certain similarity criteria which are primary and should be guaranteed for modeling design of thrusters. These dominant similarity criteria are finally verified in experiments (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Particle‐in‐cell simulation of the effect of curved magnetic field on wall bombardment and erosion in a hall thruster

A curved, convex towards the channel bottom magnetic field is an important feature of an advanced Hall thruster that allows confining the plasma flow in the channel center, reducing the divergence angle of the ejected ion beam, and improving the discharge performance. In this article, the discharge behaviour of a Hall thruster in magnetic fields with different degrees of curvature is simulated with a particle‐in‐cell numerical method, and the effect of curved magnetic field on the ion bombardment and wall erosion and the associated mechanisms are studied and analysed. The results show that, as the curvature of the magnetic field increases, the propellant ionization becomes more confined at the channel center, the potential drop inside the channel decreases, and the acceleration region shifts outside the channel, which lead to the attenuation of the ion energy bombarding the wall and the deviation of the bombardment angle from the optimal sputtering angle. Conversely, the ion flux bombarding the wall near the channel exit increases. Nevertheless, the bombardment energy and angle are the dominant factors for the wall erosion, and the wall erosion rate clearly decreases with the increasing curvature of the magnetic field. These findings are closely related to the behaviour of electron conduction under a curved magnetic field; the relevant mechanisms are clarified in this article.     

霍尔效应推力器放电双稳态机理研究

实验发现霍尔效应推力器在自励磁模式下具有两个稳定的放电工作点,且运 行过程中在这两个工作点上往复跳变,很大程度上影响了推力器通道内等离子体的放 电物理过程及其综合性能.本文结合推力器放电磁安特性曲线与励磁电流曲线的相互关 系,给出了推力器放电双稳态特性形成的物理机理．在此基础上提出了通过改变励磁电 流曲线斜率,使推力器稳定工作于单放电工作点的方法,结合一维动态流体模型给予了物 理解释,并通过实验加以验证.