Simulation and Measurement of Plume Characteristics of a Hall Thruster with 12.5 kW

Abstract

To rapidly and cheaply obtain the plume characteristics of a 12.5 kW Hall thruster, a simulation model based on the fluid method is developed, and a plume measurement is conducted to verify and compare with the simulations. The results show that the discharge process will mainly occur in the upper part of the discharge channel, and the error between simulations and measurements of the magnetic field is less than 5%. The pressure in the discharge channel is the highest and the average pressure is about 0.12 Pa. In the plume diffusion region, the plasma density decays slightly along the axial direction and rapidly in the radial direction. Additionally, the plasma density and the electron temperature from the discharge channel outlet to the upper boundary of the plume region are in the range of 6.2 × 10¹⁶ to 5.2 × 10¹⁷m^-3 and 1.8 to 12.2 eV, respectively. In the plume measurement, a single Faraday probe is used to scan and measure the beam current, and the simulations are consistent with the experiments. The simulation model basically achieves the purpose of obtaining the plume characteristics with certain accuracy, low cost and rapidly.