磁等离子体推力器工作机理与应用前景研究

Work Mechanism and Application Prospect of Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster

研究了发动机能量输入、工质电离、等离子体加速及能量转换过程及机理,同时分析了磁等离子体推力器在空间推进任务中的应用前景.研究表明磁等离子体推力器主要利用电磁力加速和磁喷管的能量转换作用来实现加速,这种方式在大功率条件下,能够获得大推力、高功率和较长工作时间,在大功率轨道航天器和深空任务中有广阔的应用前景.

Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters are accelerating devices with high-power,which are potentially useful in deep space exploration missions for the significant advantages such as high specific impulse, thrust density and efficiency. Detailed analysis is given on the thruster working mechanism and application prospect in this paper. The thruster energy input, propellant ionization, plasmas acceleration and energy conversion mechanisms are mainly studied, and the application prospects of magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters in space propulsion missions are also analyzed. The study shows that the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster mainly applies electromagnetic forces and energy conversion effect of magnetic nozzle to acceler- ate plasmas. This acceleration mode can produce large thrust, and additionally it is high efficient and has long work time. This class of thruster can be widely used in the high-power orbit vehicles for deep space exploration missions.