Helicon discharges have attracted great attention in the electric propulsion community in recent years. To acquire the equilibrium properties, a self-consistent model is developed, which combines the helicon/Trivelpie...Helicon discharges have attracted great attention in the electric propulsion community in recent years. To acquire the equilibrium properties, a self-consistent model is developed, which combines the helicon/Trivelpiece-Gould （TG） waves- plasma interaction mechanism and the plasma flow theory under the confinement of the magnetic field. The calculations reproduce the central peak density phenomenon observed in the experiments. The results show that when operating in the wave coupling mode, high magnetic field strength B0 results in the deviation of the central density versus B0 from the linear relationship, while the density rise becomes flatter as the radiofrequency （rf） input power Prf grows, and the electron temperature Te radial profile is mainly determined by the characteristic of the rf energy deposition. The model could provide suggestions in choosing the B0 and Prf for medium power helicon thrusters.展开更多
A gas injector was designed for the 400 J/pulse prototype of the planar inductive pulsed plasma thruster（IPPT） developed by the National University of Defense Technology（NUDT_IPPTx）.As the gas puff distribution ov...A gas injector was designed for the 400 J/pulse prototype of the planar inductive pulsed plasma thruster（IPPT） developed by the National University of Defense Technology（NUDT_IPPTx）.As the gas puff distribution over the coil surface is critical to the NUDT_IPPTx functioning efficiently, a fast ionization gauge was developed to investigate the neutral gas pressure profiles to seek the critical time when the thruster is ignited. The gauge was calibrated for argon by using a capacitance manometer. Time-resolved pressure profiles have been acquired in the condition of the gas puff mass matching with the discharge energy and the drive coil parameters of the NUDT_IPPTx. It is demonstrated that the gas injector can supply a gas puff with a sufficiently steep（dp/dt？≈？770 kPa s-1） leading and trailing edge, and the gas puff can be compressed against the drive coil as expected. The critical ignition moment is considered to appear at some instant between 525 μs and 650 μs after the valve trigger.展开更多
The physical process of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator is investigated.Measurements include the waveforms of circuit current,capacitor voltage,plasma radiation intensity,and temporal plasma structu...The physical process of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator is investigated.Measurements include the waveforms of circuit current,capacitor voltage,plasma radiation intensity,and temporal plasma structure photos captured by a high-speed camera.Experiments are conducted under static ambient fill condition using argon as propellant.Varied values of capacitor voltage and gas pressure are compared.Further discussions quantify the EM interaction between circuit and plasma,as well as their energy deposition and current sheet acceleration.Based on the results of experiments,physical mechanisms of the initial ionization phase and the following acceleration phase are analyzed theoretically.展开更多
A one-dimensional radial non-uniform fluid model is employed to study plasma behaviors with special emphasis laid on helicon discharges. The plasma density ne, electron temperature Te, electron azimuthal and radial dr...A one-dimensional radial non-uniform fluid model is employed to study plasma behaviors with special emphasis laid on helicon discharges. The plasma density ne, electron temperature Te, electron azimuthal and radial drift velocities are investigated in terms of the plasma radius rp, magnetic field intensity B0 and gas pressure p0, by assuming radial ambipolar diffusion and negligible ion cyclotron movement. The results show that the magnetic confinement plays an important role in the discharge equilibrium, especially at low pressure, which significantly reduces Te compared with the case of a negligible magnetic field effect, and higher B0 leads to a greater average plasma density. Te shows little variations in the plasma density range of 1011 cm-3- 1013 cm-3 for p0 〈 3.0 mTorr. Comparison of the simulation results with experiments suggests that the model can make reasonable predictions of Te in low pressure helicon discharges.展开更多
Non-intrusive characterization of the singly ionized xenon velocity in Hall thruster plume using laser induced fluorescence(LIF)is critical for constructing a complete picture of plume plasma,deeply understanding the ...Non-intrusive characterization of the singly ionized xenon velocity in Hall thruster plume using laser induced fluorescence(LIF)is critical for constructing a complete picture of plume plasma,deeply understanding the ion dynamics in the plume,and providing validation data for numerical simulation.This work presents LIF measurements of singly ionized xenon axial velocity on a grid ranging from 100 to 300 mm in axial direction and from 0 to 50 mm in radial direction for a600 W Hall thruster operating at the nominal condition of discharge voltage 300 V and discharge current 2 A,the influence of discharge voltage is investigated as well.The ion velocity distribution function(IVDF)results in the far-field plume demonstrate a profile of bimodal IVDFs,especially prominent at radial distances greater than channel inner radius of 22 mm at axial position of 100 mm,which is quite different from that of the near-field plume where bimodal IVDFs occur in the central core region for the same power Hall thruster when compared to previous LIF measurements of BHT-600 by Hargus(2010 J.Propulsion Power 26135).Beyond 100 mm,only single-peak IVDFs are measured.The two-dimensional ion velocity vector field indicates the bimodal axial IVDF is merely a geometry effect for the annular discharge channel in the far-field plume.Results about the IVDF,the most probable velocity and the accelerating potential profile along the centerline all indicate that ions are still accelerating at axial distances greater than 100 mm,and the maximum most probable velocity measured at300 mm downstream of the exit plane is about 19 km s-1.In addition,the most probable velocity of ions along radial direction changes a little except the lower velocity ion populations in the bimodal IVDF cases.The ion temperature at axial distances of 10 and 300 mm oscillates along the radial direction,while the ion temperature first increases,and then decreases for the 200 mm case.Finally,the axial position for the ion peak axial velocity on the thruster centerline is shifted upstream for higher discharge voltages,and the velocity curve is becoming steeper with the discharge voltage before reaching the maximum.This observation can be used as a criterion to optimize the thruster performance.展开更多
On the basis of considering electrochemical reactions and collision relations in detail, a direct numerical simulation model of a helicon plasma discharge with three-dimensional two-fluid equations was employed to stu...On the basis of considering electrochemical reactions and collision relations in detail, a direct numerical simulation model of a helicon plasma discharge with three-dimensional two-fluid equations was employed to study the characteristics of the temporal evolution of particle density and electron temperature. With the assumption of weak ionization, the Maxwell equations coupled with the plasma parameters were directly solved in the whole computational domain. All of the partial differential equations were solved by the finite element solver in COMSOL Multiphysics^（TM） with a fully coupled method. In this work, the numerical cases were calculated with an Ar working medium and a Shoji-type antenna. The numerical results indicate that there exist two distinct modes of temporal evolution of the electron and ground atom density, which can be explained by the ion pumping effect. The evolution of the electron temperature is controlled by two schemes： electromagnetic wave heating and particle collision cooling. The high RF power results in a high peak electron temperature while the high gas pressure leads to a low steady temperature. In addition, an OES experiment using nine Ar I lines was conducted using a modified CR model to verify the validity of the results by simulation, showing that the trends of temporal evolution of electron density and temperature are well consistent with the numerically simulated ones.展开更多
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.11305265)
文摘Helicon discharges have attracted great attention in the electric propulsion community in recent years. To acquire the equilibrium properties, a self-consistent model is developed, which combines the helicon/Trivelpiece-Gould （TG） waves- plasma interaction mechanism and the plasma flow theory under the confinement of the magnetic field. The calculations reproduce the central peak density phenomenon observed in the experiments. The results show that when operating in the wave coupling mode, high magnetic field strength B0 results in the deviation of the central density versus B0 from the linear relationship, while the density rise becomes flatter as the radiofrequency （rf） input power Prf grows, and the electron temperature Te radial profile is mainly determined by the characteristic of the rf energy deposition. The model could provide suggestions in choosing the B0 and Prf for medium power helicon thrusters.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51306203)the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province(No.2018JJ3592)
文摘A gas injector was designed for the 400 J/pulse prototype of the planar inductive pulsed plasma thruster（IPPT） developed by the National University of Defense Technology（NUDT_IPPTx）.As the gas puff distribution over the coil surface is critical to the NUDT_IPPTx functioning efficiently, a fast ionization gauge was developed to investigate the neutral gas pressure profiles to seek the critical time when the thruster is ignited. The gauge was calibrated for argon by using a capacitance manometer. Time-resolved pressure profiles have been acquired in the condition of the gas puff mass matching with the discharge energy and the drive coil parameters of the NUDT_IPPTx. It is demonstrated that the gas injector can supply a gas puff with a sufficiently steep（dp/dt？≈？770 kPa s-1） leading and trailing edge, and the gas puff can be compressed against the drive coil as expected. The critical ignition moment is considered to appear at some instant between 525 μs and 650 μs after the valve trigger.
基金Project supported by the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.2018JJ3592).
文摘The physical process of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator is investigated.Measurements include the waveforms of circuit current,capacitor voltage,plasma radiation intensity,and temporal plasma structure photos captured by a high-speed camera.Experiments are conducted under static ambient fill condition using argon as propellant.Varied values of capacitor voltage and gas pressure are compared.Further discussions quantify the EM interaction between circuit and plasma,as well as their energy deposition and current sheet acceleration.Based on the results of experiments,physical mechanisms of the initial ionization phase and the following acceleration phase are analyzed theoretically.
文摘A one-dimensional radial non-uniform fluid model is employed to study plasma behaviors with special emphasis laid on helicon discharges. The plasma density ne, electron temperature Te, electron azimuthal and radial drift velocities are investigated in terms of the plasma radius rp, magnetic field intensity B0 and gas pressure p0, by assuming radial ambipolar diffusion and negligible ion cyclotron movement. The results show that the magnetic confinement plays an important role in the discharge equilibrium, especially at low pressure, which significantly reduces Te compared with the case of a negligible magnetic field effect, and higher B0 leads to a greater average plasma density. Te shows little variations in the plasma density range of 1011 cm-3- 1013 cm-3 for p0 〈 3.0 mTorr. Comparison of the simulation results with experiments suggests that the model can make reasonable predictions of Te in low pressure helicon discharges.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.11805275)Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China(No.2018JJ3592)。
文摘Non-intrusive characterization of the singly ionized xenon velocity in Hall thruster plume using laser induced fluorescence(LIF)is critical for constructing a complete picture of plume plasma,deeply understanding the ion dynamics in the plume,and providing validation data for numerical simulation.This work presents LIF measurements of singly ionized xenon axial velocity on a grid ranging from 100 to 300 mm in axial direction and from 0 to 50 mm in radial direction for a600 W Hall thruster operating at the nominal condition of discharge voltage 300 V and discharge current 2 A,the influence of discharge voltage is investigated as well.The ion velocity distribution function(IVDF)results in the far-field plume demonstrate a profile of bimodal IVDFs,especially prominent at radial distances greater than channel inner radius of 22 mm at axial position of 100 mm,which is quite different from that of the near-field plume where bimodal IVDFs occur in the central core region for the same power Hall thruster when compared to previous LIF measurements of BHT-600 by Hargus(2010 J.Propulsion Power 26135).Beyond 100 mm,only single-peak IVDFs are measured.The two-dimensional ion velocity vector field indicates the bimodal axial IVDF is merely a geometry effect for the annular discharge channel in the far-field plume.Results about the IVDF,the most probable velocity and the accelerating potential profile along the centerline all indicate that ions are still accelerating at axial distances greater than 100 mm,and the maximum most probable velocity measured at300 mm downstream of the exit plane is about 19 km s-1.In addition,the most probable velocity of ions along radial direction changes a little except the lower velocity ion populations in the bimodal IVDF cases.The ion temperature at axial distances of 10 and 300 mm oscillates along the radial direction,while the ion temperature first increases,and then decreases for the 200 mm case.Finally,the axial position for the ion peak axial velocity on the thruster centerline is shifted upstream for higher discharge voltages,and the velocity curve is becoming steeper with the discharge voltage before reaching the maximum.This observation can be used as a criterion to optimize the thruster performance.
基金funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant agreement No. 11305265 (research on the acceleration mechanism of an electric double layer in a helicon plasma with a divergent magnetic field)
文摘On the basis of considering electrochemical reactions and collision relations in detail, a direct numerical simulation model of a helicon plasma discharge with three-dimensional two-fluid equations was employed to study the characteristics of the temporal evolution of particle density and electron temperature. With the assumption of weak ionization, the Maxwell equations coupled with the plasma parameters were directly solved in the whole computational domain. All of the partial differential equations were solved by the finite element solver in COMSOL Multiphysics^（TM） with a fully coupled method. In this work, the numerical cases were calculated with an Ar working medium and a Shoji-type antenna. The numerical results indicate that there exist two distinct modes of temporal evolution of the electron and ground atom density, which can be explained by the ion pumping effect. The evolution of the electron temperature is controlled by two schemes： electromagnetic wave heating and particle collision cooling. The high RF power results in a high peak electron temperature while the high gas pressure leads to a low steady temperature. In addition, an OES experiment using nine Ar I lines was conducted using a modified CR model to verify the validity of the results by simulation, showing that the trends of temporal evolution of electron density and temperature are well consistent with the numerically simulated ones.
