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Magnetic Shielding of the Acceleration Channel Walls in a Long-Life Hall ThrusterIn a Qualification Life Test (QLT) of the BPT-4000 Hall thruster that recently accumulated greater than 10,000 h it was found that the erosion of the acceleration channel practically stopped after approximately 5,600 h. Numerical simulations of this thruster using a 2-D axisymmetric, magnetic field-aligned-mesh (MFAM) plasma solver reveal that the process that led to this significant reduction of the erosion was multifaceted. It is found that when the channel receded from its early-in-life geometry to its steady-state configuration several changes in the near-wall plasma and sheath were induced by the magnetic field that, collectively, constituted an effective shielding of the walls from any significant ion bombardment. Because all such changes in the behavior of the ionized gas near the eroding surfaces were caused by the topology of the magnetic field there, we term this process "magnetic shielding."
Document ID
20150008898
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Mikellides, Ioannis G.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Katz, Ira
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Hofer, Richard R.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Goebel, Dan M.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
de Grys, Kristi
(Aerojet Redmond, WA, United States)
Mathers, Alex
(Aerojet Redmond, WA, United States)
Date Acquired
May 26, 2015
Publication Date
July 25, 2010
Subject Category
Numerical Analysis
Spacecraft Propulsion And Power
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit
Location: Nashville, TN
Country: United States
Start Date: July 25, 2010
End Date: July 28, 2010
Sponsors: Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society for Engineering Education
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
life modeling
plasma simulations

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