›› 2016, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (1): 51-57.doi: 10.3780/j.issn.1000-758X.2016.0010Hall

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Effect of pre-ionization on low frequency oscillation and wall corrosion in Hall thrusters

 QUAN  Lu-Lu, XING  Wei, LU  Chang, GONG  Ke-Yu, CAO  Yong*   

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation,Shenzhen Graduate School,Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055,China
  • Received:2015-11-12 Revised:2015-12-08 Published:2016-02-25 Online:2016-02-24

Abstract: With the proposed of ATON-Hall thrusters,a series of studies were carried out based on pre-ionization phenomenon in buffer. However, the selection of pre-ionization rate is still inconclusive.Therefore, two-dimensional axisymmetric full particle PIC (Fully-kinetic Particle-In-Cell) simulations were carried out based on the real size of SPT-100 Hall thruster to simulate the discharge process in the discharge chamber. The relations between and among pre Ionization rate, low frequency oscillation in the discharge channel and wall corrosion of Hall thruster were mainly studied. The simulation results show that increasing the pre-ionization rate in the buffer chamber can effectively suppress low frequency oscillation, and improve the performance of the propeller. But at the same time, the increase of the energy of ion impacting on the channel surface aggrevates the corrosion of the surface, and shorten the propeller′s shorten service life.

Key words: thruster, buffer pre-ionization, low frequency oscillation, wall corrosion