Investigation of variable aperture on the performance and lifetime of ion thruster

Juanjuan CHEN(陈娟娟); Yanhui JIA(贾艳辉); Hai GENG(耿海); Ning GUO(郭宁); Dezhou GUO(郭德洲)

doi:10.1088/2058-6272/ac11af

Plasma Science and Technology > 2021 > 23(10): 104002. > DOI: 10.1088/2058-6272/ac11af

Juanjuan CHEN(陈娟娟), Yanhui JIA(贾艳辉), Hai GENG(耿海), Ning GUO(郭宁), Dezhou GUO(郭德洲). Investigation of variable aperture on the performance and lifetime of ion thruster[J]. Plasma Science and Technology, 2021, 23(10): 104002. DOI: 10.1088/2058-6272/ac11af

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Investigation of variable aperture on the performance and lifetime of ion thruster

National Key Laboratory of Vacuum and Cryogenic Technology on Physics, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, Lanzhou 730030, People's Republic of China

Funds: This work is supported by Top Young Talents of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Innovation Group Project of Gansu Province and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11802111).

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Received Date: March 03, 2021
Revised Date: July 01, 2021
Accepted Date: July 05, 2021

Graphical Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

Beam flatness is an important parameter that determines the performance and the lifetime of a gridded ion thruster. To improve the beam flatness of the 30 cm (LIPS-300) ion thruster, variable aperture ion optics that adapts to the decreasing ion density as the radius increases is proposed. It is the ion optics that the screen grid surface is divided into several zones, where the aperture diameter in each zone is determined by the ion density and the electron temperature upstream of the screen grid. The beam current density in the central area is artificially reduced. A particle in cell-Monte Carlo collision model is applied in this work to investigating the effect of variable aperture on the perveance and the maximum beam current per aperture by simulating the extraction, focusing and acceleration processes of ions. Taking into account the engineering implementability, the screen grid surface is divided into four zones. The hole diameter in each zone is decreased from 1.95 mm to 1.8 mm, 1.9 mm, 1.8 mm and 1.7 mm, respectively. The simulation results show that the maximum ion density in the center area of grid is decreased by 10.6% and 6.99%, while it is increased by 6.49% and 22.3% in the edge region, respectively. The beam flatness of the variable aperture ion optics is improved from 0.69 to 0.88. The erosion rate is decreased by 31.9%, but the total beam current is also decreased by 7.15%. The simulation results can provide a valuable reference of the development of the ion thruster.
- ion thruster,
- variable aperture,
- PIC-MCC,
- simulation

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References (21)

References

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