evaluation of the performances of a helicon plasma thruster
- Paper number
IAC-13,C4,P,34.p1,x19843
- Author
Mr. Cheng Yuguo, National University of Defense Technology of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, China
- Coauthor
Prof. Mousen Cheng, China
- Coauthor
Dr. Moge Wang, China
- Year
2013
- Abstract
A full-scale simulation code is developed to evaluate the performances of a helicon plasma thruster designed in NUDT. A global energy and particle balance model is employed to get the stable discharge parameters in the source tube which are then used as the inlet conditions of a two-dimensional axis-symmetric PIC code studying plasma expansion and acceleration processes along a diverging magnetic field. The PIC code assumes a Maxwell distribution of electrons. The fluid and PIC models together give a full description of the thrust performances such as thrust, specific impulse. The results show an appropriate agreement between simulation and experiments conducted in a vacuum chamber which shows the validity of the developed full-scale model.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)