Study of the design and efficiency of single stage EHD thrusters at the sub-atmospheric pressure of 1.3 kPa

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2017-12-20

Authors

Victor H. Granados (Author) FEUP; Paulo. A . Sá (Author) FEUP; Mario J. Pinheiro (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Physics of Plasmas

Vol. 24 No. 9

Initial page: 123513

ISSN: 1070-664X

Publisher: American Institute of Physics

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citations

Scopus - 5 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00N-FP1

DOI: 10.1063/1.5018424

Abstract (EN): The goal of this article is to contribute to the advancement and the improvement of the performances of electrohydrodynamic (EHD) propulsion systems for space missions, especially in what concerns the control of the geometries of the electrodes and the employed gas and its efficiency. We use a previously developed self-consistent model to compare and study the performance of these systems using three different working gases (argon, nitrogen, and oxygen) in terms of net thrust production and thrust-to-power efficiency of single-stage EHD thrusters. In order to verify the dependency of those physical parameters on the configuration and orientation of the electrodes, we conduct systematic simulations of three thruster cathode configurations (conical, cylindrical, and funnel-like). In the present study, the working pressure is approximate to 1.3 kPa (10 Torr), well below the normal atmospheric pressure, and the gas temperature is 300 K. A similar systematic investigation was conducted in a recent paper at a relatively much lower pressure of 0.5 Torr (20 times less) for the same cathode duct geometries and working gases, which permit to compare the performances of the considered thrusters and gases at these two pressures; then and now, the distance between the electrodes is fixed at 28 mm, but in addition to the pressure, other parameters were modified. Thus, the input voltage is fixed at 3 kV, and the resistance of the ballast varies in the range of 500-5000 MX. Nitrogen gas performed better than argon for all proposed geometries, doubling the produced thrust while presenting higher T/P ratios in almost all cases. Oxygen presented significantly better performance than nitrogen's and argon's, e.g., funnel like cathode configuration presented a net thrust higher than 0.1 mN, about one order of magnitude higher than nitrogen's. Published by AIP Publishing.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 12