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Rotating magnetic field driven plasma engine for space propulsion
Citation
Sun, Y. (2022). Rotating magnetic field driven plasma engine for space propulsion [Doctoral dissertation, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore]. https://doi.org/10.32658/10497/24782
Author
Sun, Yufei
Supervisor
Xu, Shuyan
Abstract
The development of thrusters for spacecraft has seen a tremendous growth and the number of spacecraft including small satellites and CubeSats has been increasing exponentially over the past several decades. Electric thrusters flourish where traditional chemical thrusters fail to meet requirements. The advent of electric thrusters has helped humans travel further from Earth and has the potential to be developed for interstellar flights due to their advantages such as high velocity increments, long operational lifetimes, high impulse-to-weight ratios and high impulse-to-power ratios. In this work, a Rotating Magnetic Field (RMF) driven plasma engine is developed based on a technique in a compact torus configuration – rotamak, initially proposed for controlled thermonuclear fusion. Its potential in electric propulsion is applied to design a small electrodeless space thruster. Crucial mechanisms were researched and elucidated in the rotamak, i.e. the RMF, the driven current and the Field Reversed Configuration (FRC). The driven azimuthal current was reached 2 kA with a total RMF power of 400 W and the argon plasma density was 6.0 ×1018 m3. However, the production, confinement and acceleration of plasma in a small thruster with a length of 15 cm is challenging. Substantial multifarious physical characterisations were conducted and a well-developed measurement system was designed and built. The electrical and optical properties, characterisation of the plasma plume, and performance of the thruster prototype were studied by various techniques and plasma diagnostics. With the application of the rotamak technique, a relatively high-density (over 1019 m−3) and low-temperature (about 1 eV) krypton plasma was built in the thruster and worked under a low total power of 200~400 W, with a long pulse of up to dozens of seconds. Plasma coupling efficiency up to 70% was achieved resulting in most of the ions having energy higher than 2500 eV.
Date Issued
2022
Call Number
TL783.54 Sun
Dataset
https://doi.org/10.25340/R4/UJ8GKY
Date Submitted
2022