Particle-in-cell simulation for effect of anode temperature on discharge characteristics of a Hall effect thruster

Hong LI (李鸿); Xingyu LIU (刘星宇); Zhiyong GAO (高志勇); Yongjie DING (丁永杰); Liqiu WEI (魏立秋); Daren YU (于达仁); Xiaogang WANG (王晓钢)

doi:10.1088/2058-6272/aaddf2

Plasma Science and Technology > 2018 > 20(12): 125504. > DOI: 10.1088/2058-6272/aaddf2

Hong LI (李鸿), Xingyu LIU (刘星宇), Zhiyong GAO (高志勇), Yongjie DING (丁永杰), Liqiu WEI (魏立秋), Daren YU (于达仁), Xiaogang WANG (王晓钢). Particle-in-cell simulation for effect of anode temperature on discharge characteristics of a Hall effect thruster[J]. Plasma Science and Technology, 2018, 20(12): 125504. DOI: 10.1088/2058-6272/aaddf2

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Particle-in-cell simulation for effect of anode temperature on discharge characteristics of a Hall effect thruster

¹ Plasma Propulsion Laboratory, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, People’s Republic of China
² AECC Harbin Dongan Engine (Group) Corporation Ltd, Harbin 150066, People’s Republic of China
³ Department of Physics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, People’s Republic of China

Funds: This work has been funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51507040, 51736003 and 51777045), the Research Program (No. JSZL2016203C006) and the Funda- mental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. HIT. NSRIF. 2015079).

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Received Date: March 29, 2018

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Abstract

Abstract

Propellant gas flow has an important impact on the ionization and acceleration process of Hall effect thrusters (HETs). In this paper, a particle-in-cell numerical method is used to study the effect of the anode temperature, i.e., the flow speed of the propellant gas, on the discharge characteristics of a HET. The simulation results show that, no matter the magnitude of the discharge voltage, the calculated variation trends of performance parameters with the anode temperature are in good agreement with the experimental ones presented in the literature. Further mechanism analysis indicates that the magnitude of the electron temperature is responsible for the two opposing variation laws found under different discharge voltages. When the discharge voltage is low, the electron temperature is low, and so is the intensity of the propellant ionization; the variation of the thruster performance with the anode temperature is thereby determined by the variation of the neutral density that affects the propellant utilization efficiency. When the discharge voltage is high, the electron temperature is large enough to guarantee a high degree of the propellant utilization no matter the magnitude of the anode temperature. The change of the thruster performance with the anode temperature is thus dominated by the change of the electron temperature and consequently the electron-neutral collisions as well as the electron cross-field mobility that affect the current utilization efficiency.
- Hall effect thruster,
- anode temperature,
- neutral flow,
- discharge characteristics,
- particle-in-cell simulation

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References (38)

References

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