Investigation on plasma structure evolution and discharge characteristics of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator under ambient fill condition

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ab9f2a

Abstract

The physical process of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator is investigated. Measurements include the waveforms of circuit current, capacitor voltage, plasma radiation intensity, and temporal plasma structure photos captured by a high-speed camera. Experiments are conducted under static ambient fill condition using argon as propellant. Varied values of capacitor voltage and gas pressure are compared. Further discussions quantify the EM interaction between circuit and plasma, as well as their energy deposition and current sheet acceleration. Based on the results of experiments, physical mechanisms of the initial ionization phase and the following acceleration phase are analyzed theoretically.

Keywords: electric propulsion pulsed-inductive thruster discharge characteristics plasma structure

Received: 15 May 2020
Revised: 09 June 2020
Accepted manuscript online: 23 June 2020

Fund: the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2018JJ3592).

Corresponding Authors: ^†Corresponding author. E-mail: chebixuan@outlook.com

Cite this article:

Xiao-Kang Li(李小康), Bi-Xuan Che(车碧轩), Mou-Sen Cheng(程谋森), Da-Wei Guo(郭大伟), Mo-Ge Wang(王墨戈), and Yun-Tian Yang(杨云天) Investigation on plasma structure evolution and discharge characteristics of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator under ambient fill condition 2020 Chin. Phys. B 29 115201

Fig. 1.

Schematic diagram of experiment setups.

Fig. 2.

Configuration of drive-coil.

Fig. 3.

Arrange of capacitors.

Fig. 4.

Circuit schematic diagram of pulse-forming network (PFN).

Table 1.

Circuit parameters of pulse-forming network.

Fig. 5.

Long exposure photograph of the discharge process.

Fig. 6.

Representative frames of high speed photographing.

Fig. 7.

Capacitor voltage V.

Fig. 8.

Circuit current I_C.

Fig. 9.

Plasma radiation intensity U_R.

Fig. 10.

Lumped elementary circuit model of a pulsed-inductive accelerator.

Fig. 11.

Comparisons of derived parameters: (a) exhausting speed v_t, (b) Lovberg ratio L*, (c) energy deposition ratio ε.

Fig. 12.

Comparison of initial gas ionization mode: (a) a compact current sheet leads to snowplow ionization mode; (b) a loosen current sheet leads to diffusive ionization mode.

Fig. 13.

Comparisons of current sheet acceleration state: (a) current sheet still resorts near drive-coil when the circuit current has already inversed; (b) current sheet has already decoupled with drive-coil before the circuit current peaks; (c) current sheet just decouples with drive-coil when circuit current inverses.

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Investigation on plasma structure evolution and discharge characteristics of a single-stage planar-pulsed-inductive accelerator under ambient fill condition

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