Low-power cylinder-type electromagnetic plasma thruster with adjustable magnetic field

Abstract

The invention provides a low-power cylinder-type electromagnetic plasma thruster with an adjustable magnetic field and belongs to the field of electric propulsion. The thruster comprises a front coil, a rear coil, a ceramic discharging channel, a pure iron sleeve, an iron core, a front seal cover, a rear seal cover and others. A discharging chamber formed by the ceramic discharging channel is cylindrical. The front coil and the rear coil are installed in front and back of the ceramic discharging channel respectively, and the distribution of the magnetic field inside the discharging chamber is changed by adjusting the current of the coils. A magnetic guide ring is installed at the outlet end of the ceramic discharging channel, a plasma generating region and an accelerating region inside the discharging chamber are easily separated, ions are fully accelerated, and the specific impulse of the thruster is improved. According to the thruster, a discharging chamber of a common Hall thruster is improved into a complete cylinder, in this way, the annular Hall thruster is high in corrosion rate under low power, ionization efficiency is obviously improved, and the low-power cylinder-type electromagnetic plasma thruster can stably work under 100 W or less and has expanded application in the low-power field compared with the common electric thruster.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of electric propulsion, and relates to a cylindrical electromagnetic plasma thruster with low power and adjustable magnetic field. Background technique [0002] After more than 60 years of development of electric propulsion technology, relatively mature applied products include ion thrusters and Hall thrusters. Among them, the Hall thruster is slightly inferior to the ion thruster in terms of specific impulse and efficiency, but because of its simpler structure and control system, it has become one of the development priorities in the field of electric propulsion in various countries. [0003] Conventional Hall thrusters use annular discharge channels, and when the rated power is higher than 100W, the annular channels can fully meet the needs of space missions. However, with the gradual rise of the trend of satellite miniaturization, designers have put forward requirements for reducing power consumption of the propul...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, with the gradual rise of the miniaturization trend of satellites, designers put forward requirements for reducing power consumption of the propulsion system, and there are almost no products with a power consumption of less than 100W for conventional electric thrusters, let alone less than 50W

Although people try to scale conventional Hall thrusters in various ways, under the condition that the annular structure remains unchanged and the characteristic length is scaled down, the developed small thrusters are often inefficient, have low specific impulse, or are not at all Cannot reduce power consumption below 100W

The main reason for this problem is that in the miniaturization process of the annular Hall thruster, the magnetic field strength required to confine electrons is inversely proportional to the scaling ratio, and a strong magnetic field requires a high-power, large-volume permanent magnet or electromagnetic coil to generate, which obviously violates the original intention of propeller miniaturization

Not only that, the narrow annular discharge channel seriously reduces the ionization efficiency, and the electrons often collide with the wall of the channel before reaching the anode or colliding with the propellant atoms, causing the wall to corrode, and the corrosion of the wall is also an important factor affecting the life of the propeller

Images