毛细管型脉冲等离子体推力器研究现状综述

A Review of the Current Research Situation on Capillary Based Pulsed Plasma Thruster

毛细管型脉冲等离子体推力器是一种高性能微型电推进系统。它利用放电电弧在腔体内部烧蚀管壁材料,材料消融产生的等离子体在压力梯度下加速喷射产生推力。毛细管型脉冲等离子体推力器具有结构简单,可靠性高,输出参数可调节范围宽的特点。与传统脉冲等离子体推力器相比,在低功率条件下,其推功比和总体效率有较大提升,在微小卫星领域具有较好的应用前景。毛细管型推力器研究包括推力器结构设计、关键部件及电源研制、工作机制研究、工作特性诊断、性能参数优化等,本文调研了日本、美国、德国等研究机构的相关研究成果,并对毛细管型脉冲等离子体推力器的研究现状进行评述。

The capillary based pulsed plasma thruster is an advanced electric propulsion system.The material of the inner cavity is ablated by the arc,and the plasma generated by the ablation accelerates the injection to generate thrust under pressure gradient.The capillary based pulsed plasma thruster has the characteristics of simple structure,high reliability and wide range of adjustable output parameters.Compared with the traditional pulsed plasma thruster,the thrust ratio and overall efficiency are greatly improved under the low-level circumstance.As a result,it has great prospect in the micro satellites application.The research on capillary-based thrusters includes the design of thrusters,the development of key components and power supply,working mechanism,the diagnosis of working characteristics,and the optimization of performance parameters.This paper reviews the results of research institutions in Japan,the USA,Germany,etc.,and also concludes the research status of plasma thruster.