Theoretical and experimental investigation of Hall thruster miniaturization

Interest in small-scale space propulsion continues to grow with the increasing number of small satellite missions, particularly in the area of formation flight. Miniaturized Hall thrusters have been identified as a candidate for lightweight, high specific impulse propulsion systems that can extend mission lifetime and payload capability. A set of scaling laws was developed that allows the dimensions and operating parameters of a miniaturized Hall thruster to be determined from an existing, technologically mature baseline design. The scaling analysis preserves the dominant plasma processes that determine thruster performance including ionization, electron confinement and recombination losses. These scaling laws were applied to the design of a 9mm diameter, nominally 200W thruster based on the Russian D-55 anode layer Hall thruster. The Miniature Hall Thruster (MHT-9) design was further refined using magnetostatic and steady-state thermal finite element modeling techniques. Performance testing was conducted over a wide range of input powers from 20-500W with voltages between 100-300V and propellant flow rates of 0.3-1.0mg/s. Measured thrust was 1-18mN with a maximum thrust efficiency of 34% and specific impulse of 2000s. Significant erosion of thruster surfaces was observed due to the high plasma density required to maintain collisional mean free paths. Although the thrust efficiency was significantly lower than predicted by scaling laws, the MHT-9 is the best performing subcentimeter diameter Hall thruster built to date. A dimensionless performance analysis has shown that while the magnetic confinement ratio was successfully scaled, the thruster did not maintain the desired Knudsen number because of plasma heating.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Warner, Noah Zachary, 1978-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Manuel Martínez-Sánchez.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42044

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/42044