An integrated fluid simulation platform on Hall thruster plasmas

Abstract

In this work, a newly integrated fluid simulation platform, named DUT-HTFS, is developed for the multiple physical fields in Hall thrusters. The integrated simulation platform includes three inter-related parts: the geometry module, background magnetic field module, and plasma module. Using the geometry module, three sets of meshes for a Hall thruster are obtained. One set of the mesh is for the calculation of the background magnetic fields, the second is for the electric potentials, and the third is for the plasmas. Based on the meshes and using the background magnetic field module, a numerical result of the background magnetic field in the Hall thruster is obtained and discussed. Based on the meshes and the numerical result of the background magnetic field, using the plasma module, the numerical results of the plasmas in the Hall thruster are obtained. The results of the plasma density, the electric field, the electric potential, and the ionization rate are similar to those from HPHALL (Hybrid-PIC Hall thruster code) simulations and are qualitatively consistent with the experimental results from the literature. Furthermore, varying the neutral gas pressure from 0.02 to 0.03 Torr, the numerical results of the plasmas in the Hall thruster are obtained. These results reveal that neutral gas pressure effects contributed considerably to the shape, location, and magnitude of the peak plasma properties, including the ion density, axial electric field, and ionization rate. This fluid simulation platform could provide a new angle of view for better understanding of the physical mechanism in Hall thrusters.