Plume interference effects of the racetrack-shaped anode-layer Hall thruster system

Abstract

Plume interference effects on the discharge characteristics and thruster performance for two heads system were investigated to evaluate the optimum design of the Hall thruster cluster system using the anode-layer head. An anode-layer head with a racetrack shape acceleration channel was designed in this study to better capture the interference effects. The racetrack-shaped head has straight parts and can certainly capture the plume interference effect. The system is termed a side by side (SBS) Hall thruster system because the two heads are positioned in a straight line to sandwich one hollow cathode. The SBS system’s discharge characteristics and thruster performance were assessed. It was indicated that the thruster performance was better improved in SBS operations than the sum of the single operations. The thruster performance is also influenced by the interaction of the two heads’ magnetic field directions. The effect of the plume interference on the amplitude increase point, which is the inner coil current when the discharge current oscillation amplitude increases rapidly, was evaluated to examine the stable operation range. The increased point also depends on the interaction of the magnetic field directions. These findings suggest that plume interference has an impact on the ionization through the backflow electron. Furthermore, a head susceptible to plume interference substantially impacts the behavior of the total discharge current due to individual head differences.

Keywords

• electric propulsion
• hall thruster
• cluster system
• plume interference
• anode layer