Diagnostic Studies of a Pinch Plasma Accelerator

Gas-Fed Pulsed Plasma Thrusters: Fundamentals, Characteristics and Scaling Laws

“…The plasma conductivity was also seen to increase with increasing voltage from the interferometry measurements. Later measurements on the same thruster showed that this plasma front was close to perpendicular all along the electrodes although the sheet itself was spreading out as it propagated [32]. Also, a variety of different propellant types (hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, freon) were tried and photocell measurements showed a slight increase in velocity for smaller molecular weights, although all the velocities were relatively similar except in the extreme case of hydrogen.…”

“…They were suggested to be below 50% from calculations of the amount of energy going into the internal losses of the capacitors [32]. Velocity measurements from probes do not necessarily correspond to the mass averaged exhaust velocity as the sweeping efficiency of the sheet may not be 100%.…”