The Effects of Insulator Wall Material on Hall Thruster Discharges: A Numerical Study

Abstract

An investigation was undertaken to determine how the choice of insulator wall material inside a Hall thruster discharge channel might affect thruster operation. In order to study this, an evolved hybrid particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical Hall thruster model, HPHall, was used. HPHall solves a set of quasi-one-dimensional fluid equations for electrons and tracks heavy particles using a PIC method.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 03, 2001
Accession Number
ADA410753

Entities

People

  • John M. Fife
  • Summer Locke

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Differential Equations
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Electron Emission
  • Electron Energy
  • Electrons
  • Emission
  • Equations
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Hall Thrusters
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Materials
  • Photoexcitation
  • Secondary Emission
  • Simulations
  • Spacecraft
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster