Kinetic particle simulation of discharge and wall erosion of a Hall thruster

Cho, Shinatora; Komurasaki, Kimiya; Arakawa, Yoshihiro

doi:10.1063/1.4810798

Cited by 45 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As no effective experimental method exists currently to measure the parameters of ions bombarding the wall (flux, energy, and angle of incidence), a PIC numerical method, which has been widely used in the study of Hall thrusters, is applied in this article. Compared with other simulation methods, the PIC method has the unique advantage of studying the behaviour of ions bombarding the wall by tracking the movement of a large number of particles and obtaining the characteristics of the associated macroscopic parameters.…”

Section: Pic Numerical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Particle‐in‐cell simulation of the effect of curved magnetic field on wall bombardment and erosion in a hall thruster

Liu

Hu³

et al. 2019

Contributions to Plasma Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A curved, convex towards the channel bottom magnetic field is an important feature of an advanced Hall thruster that allows confining the plasma flow in the channel center, reducing the divergence angle of the ejected ion beam, and improving the discharge performance. In this article, the discharge behaviour of a Hall thruster in magnetic fields with different degrees of curvature is simulated with a particle‐in‐cell numerical method, and the effect of curved magnetic field on the ion bombardment and wall erosion and the associated mechanisms are studied and analysed. The results show that, as the curvature of the magnetic field increases, the propellant ionization becomes more confined at the channel center, the potential drop inside the channel decreases, and the acceleration region shifts outside the channel, which lead to the attenuation of the ion energy bombarding the wall and the deviation of the bombardment angle from the optimal sputtering angle. Conversely, the ion flux bombarding the wall near the channel exit increases. Nevertheless, the bombardment energy and angle are the dominant factors for the wall erosion, and the wall erosion rate clearly decreases with the increasing curvature of the magnetic field. These findings are closely related to the behaviour of electron conduction under a curved magnetic field; the relevant mechanisms are clarified in this article.

show abstract

Section: Pic Numerical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Particle‐in‐cell simulation of the effect of curved magnetic field on wall bombardment and erosion in a hall thruster

Liu

Hu³

et al. 2019

Contributions to Plasma Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The concept of artificial electron mass was first used for Hall thruster simulation by Hirakawa 11 , and was applied to the University of Tokyo UT-SPT-62 thruster with an original correction model 7 :…”

Section: Artificial Electron Massmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A two dimensional fully kinetic Particle-In-Cell code 7) was developed in this study. This in-house code was continuingly developed since 2010 8) and was tested by modeling the thrust performance and wall erosion profile of the thrusters of the University of Tokyo.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parametric Kinetic Simulation of an IHI High Specific Impulse SPT-Type Hall Thruster

Cho¹,

Watanabe²,

Kubota³

et al. 2014

50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A 1 kW class magnetic layer type Hall thruster designed for high specific impulse operation by IHI Corporation, Japan was modeled by a fully kinetic particle code. The measured maximum performance of the thruster was 64% in anode efficiency and 3,200s (3.1kW, 800V) in anode specific impulse. The thruster performance, wall heat loss and erosion, and the plasma property distributions were numerically investigated for the operation conditions ranged from 300V to 700V in discharge voltage, and 2mg/s to 4mg/s in xenon mass flow rate. Simulations with two numerical models: with and without the Bohm diffusion assumption were performed for each thruster operation conditions to characterize the uncertainty caused by the Bohm diffusion model. The simulation results were compared with the measured results, and exhibited excellent agreement with the maximum performance error of 20% for both models. It is suggested that as engineering tools, with and without Bohm simulations can be respectively used as the worst and best case analysis for the performance, heat load, and erosion. NomenclatureB = Magnetic flux density Be = Magnitude of magnetic flux density applied for electrons in the mass ratio model e = Elementary charge F = Faraday constant f = Mass acceleration factor * = Ion species fraction fB = Magnetic flux density correction factor for the mass ratio model Ib = Beam current Id = Discharge current 2 JH = Hall current M = Atomic mass of xenon me = Electron mass mi = Ion mass ̇ = Ion mass flow rate ̇ = Mass flow rate of specific ion species ̇ = Total mass flow rate of xenon ne = Electron number density ni = Ion number density Pjet = Total energy of heavy particles ejected from the thruster Pd = Discharge power Q = Average ion charge rL = Larmor radius T = Thrust Va = Acceleration voltage Vd = Discharge voltage v = Speed vz = Axial speed 0 = Neutral speed ratio Zj = Charge number Greek:  = Ratio of Bohm diffusion collision frequency against scattering one  = Loss of voltage utilization  = Loss of current utilization  = Effective ionization cost = Anode efficiency = Energy efficiency = Debye length = Electron mobility across the magnetic field ℎ   Bohm diffusion collision frequency   Elastic collision frequency   Inelastic collision frequency = Total cross-section for electron-neutral collisions = Mass utilization − = Neutral gain utilization = Propellant utilization = Charge utilization  = Output moles of charge per input moles of xenon = Beam efficiency = Electron Hall parameter = Ion Hall parameter = Electron cyclotron frequency = Plasma frequency

show abstract

“…The interactions between the electrons and magnetic field, and between the electrons and channel walls, are really sophisticated in the discharge chamber [26]. In addition, these interactions also have significant impact on the electron dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Preionization on the Erosion of the Discharge Channel Wall in a Hall Thruster Using a Kinetic Simulation

Cao

Kang

et al. 2015

IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The two major problems with Hall thrusters are the sputtering erosion of the discharge channel wall and the low-frequency oscillation. A new design for a Hall thruster with an innovative buffer chamber, in which part of the propellant is ionized, shows effective ability to restrain the lowfrequency oscillation. However, how the preionization affects the erosion of the channel wall has not been well studied. In this paper, a 2-D axisymmetric fully kinetic particle-in-cell and Monte Carlo collision model is developed to investigate the effect of preionization on erosion of the channel wall of a Hall thruster. The geometry of this simulation model corresponds to the typical SPT-70 thruster, and the computational domain includes the whole discharge chamber of the thruster and the near-field plume region. Some scaling laws are introduced to accelerate this simulation. A preionization model and an erosion model are imported into the simulation to investigate the effect of different preionization ratios on the erosion of the channel wall. The results indicate that the effect of preionization on the change in the electric field is not obvious, in that it does not change the energy of the sputter ions significantly. When the preionization ratio increases, the ion incidence angle decreases slightly, but the number of sputter ions increases markedly. Overall, the erosion of the channel wall increases with the increasing preionization ratio. It needs further consideration for the application of the buffer chamber that preionizes the discharge plasma.Index Terms-Fully kinetic particle-in-cell Monte Carlo collision (PIC-MCC), Hall thruster, ion sputtering, preionization, wall erosion.

show abstract

Kinetic particle simulation of discharge and wall erosion of a Hall thruster

Cited by 45 publications

References 29 publications

Particle‐in‐cell simulation of the effect of curved magnetic field on wall bombardment and erosion in a hall thruster

Particle‐in‐cell simulation of the effect of curved magnetic field on wall bombardment and erosion in a hall thruster

Parametric Kinetic Simulation of an IHI High Specific Impulse SPT-Type Hall Thruster

Effect of Preionization on the Erosion of the Discharge Channel Wall in a Hall Thruster Using a Kinetic Simulation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About