电帆推进在等离子体环境下推力影响因素分析和试验研究

Theoretical and Experimental Research on Thrust Factor of Electric Sail Propulsion in Plasma Environment

关键词:  电帆  等离子体  朗缪尔探针  微推力测量  地面模拟

Key words:  Electric sail  Plasma  Langmuir probe  Micro thrust measurement  Ground simulation

摘要:

为了分析电帆推力的影响因素，根据电帆推进原理设计了电帆地面模拟装置。首先分析了真空中带电导线和等离子作用机理，得出了电帆推力公式。利用朗缪尔探针测量了电帆模拟试验环境中等离子体参数，计算产生推力的大小，最后通过微推力测量系统测量电帆产生的推力，与计算结果进行了对比。根据推力公式和仿真结果表明，提高电压、增加带电粒子密度和速度、增加电帆长度均可增加推力。在试验中电帆上电压从300V增加到800V时，推力从9μN增加到26μN。仿真和试验结果表明，电压、带电粒子密度和速度、电帆导线长度都对推力有影响。根据试验结果，电帆推力公式的经验推力系数在1～2取值。

Abstract:

In order to analyse the influence factors of the electric sail thrust， the electric sail ground simulation equipment is designed according to the electric sail propulsion theory. Firstly， to obtain the thrust formula of electric sail，the interaction mechanism of charged wire and plasma in vacuum is analysed. Langmuir probes are used to measure the plasma parameters in the simulation environment of the electric sail， and the thrust generated by the electric sail is calculated. Finally， the thrust generated by the electric sail is measured by a micro-thrust measurement system and compared with the calculated result. According to the thrust formula and the simulation result， the thrust increases while the voltage， the density and velocity of charged particles， and the length of electric sail increase. When the voltage on the sail increases from 300V to 800V， the thrust increases from 9μN to 26μN. The simulation and experiment results show that the voltage， the density， and velocity of charged particles， and the length of the electric sail wire all affect the thrust. Based on the results， the empirical thrust coefficient of the electric sail thrust formula is between 1 and 2.