Variation in Ion Acceleration Characteristics of the HERMeS Hall Thruster During Magnetic Optimization

Huang, Wensheng ; Kamhawi, Hani ; Herman, Daniel A

关键词: HALL THRUSTERS;    MAGNETIC SHIELDING;    LASER INDUCED FLUORESCENCE;    VELOCITY MEASUREMENT;    PLASMA INTERACTIONS;    PLASMA JETS;    TRANSITION POINTS;   

RP-ID  :  IEPC-2019-713,GRC-E-DAA-TN72457

学科分类：航空航天科学

美国|英语

来源: NASA Technical Reports Server

【 摘 要 】

To reduce design risks for future magnetically shielded Hall thrusters, a test was performed on the HERMeS to obtain data for optimizing the effect of magnetic shielding. As a part of this test, laser-induced fluorescence velocimetry was used to characterize the variations in the ion acceleration with different magnetic configurations. Four magnetic configurations representing varying amounts of magnetic shielding between the high-energy discharge plasma and the discharge channel walls were tested. The ion velocity data points to the possibility that different plasma-wall interaction physics applies to a magnetically shielded thruster than a non-shielded thruster. The transition point is very prominent and can potentially be used to test whether a thruster is fully magnetically shielded.