Study of Plume Characteristics of a Stationary Plasma Thruster

• 来源期刊: 等离子体科学和技术(英文版)
• 年，卷（期）: 2008,（5）
• 页码范围: 612-618
• 页数: 7页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Electron density and temperature of the plume are measured by a double Langmuir probe in an experimental chamber.A numerical model based on both particle-in-cell scheme and direct simulation Monte Carlo hybrid method is developed to simulate the flow field of plume.The equation for plasma potential is solved by alternative direction implicit technique. The simulation is verified by comparing the computational results with the measured data.The study indicates that the electron temperature of flow field is about 2 eV and the electron density is about 2.5 × 1016 ～ 5 × 1015 m-3 at the central line with a distance of 0.3 ～ 1.0 m downstream of the thruster exit.The model can well predict the flow field parameters of the steady plume.The efforts of this paper are referable for further investigation.