霍尔电推进离子能量后加载设计及工作特性

Design and Performance of Ion Energy Rear Loading Hall Propulsion

关键词:  电推进  等离子体  霍尔推力器  离子能量  后加载

Key words:  Electric propulsion  Plasma  Hall thruster  Ion energy  Rear loading

摘要:

典型的全电推进通信卫星通常设计使用寿命约为15年，对霍尔电推力器的使用寿命要求达到了10⁴h量级，因此，长寿命设计技术是影响其能否工程应用的关键技术。简要调研了国内外霍尔推力器延寿技术的发展，分析得到壁面及磁极腐蚀程度是影响推力器寿命的核心物理过程。通过分析推力器放电过程离子加速场的建立过程，提出一种具有离子能量后加载特征的设计方法，使得电离产生氙离子的主要能量加载过程发生在放电通道的末端。该设计导致推力器的推力效率下降约1%~2%，但同时有效降低了通道内氙离子的能量，缓解高能离子对放电通道壁面的溅射作用，进而缩短腐蚀带长度60%以上，降低通道壁面及磁极工作温度31~55℃，可应用于霍尔推力器延寿设计。

Abstract:

Typical all-electric propulsion communication satellites are usually designed with a lifetime about 15 years， which indicates the lifetime of a Hall thruster is required to reach the magnitude of 10⁴ hours. Therefore， long-life designs of Hall thruster are key technologies that affect their engineering application. The development of Hall thruster lifetime prolongation technology was briefly investigated. By analyzing the establishing process of ion accelerating field， a new design with ion energy rear loading characteristics was proposed. In this design， the xenon ion main energy loading process occurred at the end of the discharge channel， which reduced the xenon ion energy in the discharge channel region， and alleviated high-energy ion sputtering with channel wall. Experimental results demonstrated the thrust efficiency reduce by 1%~2% in this rear loading design， meanwhile the corrosion belt lengths are shortened by more than 60%， temperatures of channel walls and poles reduce by 31~55℃. Therefore， this new design method is potential to prolong the lifetime of Hall thruster.