电子回旋共振离子推力器放电室等离子体数值模拟

Numerical simulation on the plasma field within discharge chamber of electron cyclotron resonance ion thruster

电子回旋共振离子推力器属于静电型推力器,具有寿命长、比冲高、结构简单、可靠性高等优点,适用于深空探测等长时间空间飞行任务.放电室是一个关键部件,其内部通过电子回旋共振产生等离子体.针对放电室内等离子体流场建立飘移-扩散近似模型,采用迎风格式有限差分法对该模型进行数值求解,得到了放电室内不同时刻的等离子体流场分布及其演化规律.数值模拟结果可以为推力器的设计和实验研究提供有用信息.

The discharge chamber is a key component of electron cyclotron resonance ion thruster.The plasma inside it is generated through a electron cyclotron resonance process.The drift and diffusion model of plasma inside the discharge chamber for numerical simulation is developed in this paper.The time dependent parameters of plasma are obtained by solving this model with upwind difference scheme.The results can provide useful information for the design and also the experiment of electron cyclotron resonance ion thruster.