Study on the high efficiency Hall thruster for space use

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To develop Hall thrusters having high efficiency, focusing on interactions of plasma with acceleration channel walls, effects of acceleration channel on thruster operations were studied experimentally and numerically. Investigations were performed for different propellants and orifice radial positions. As results of numerical analyses using a developed particle code, it is found that in the case of xenon having a small ionization energy, the discharge current oscillation amplitude is large and the thrust efficiency is high. In the case of the orifice installed near the channel wall, the amplitude of discharge current oscillation was suppressed. This tendency was confirmed by the experiments. A loss of plasma to the acceleration channel walls in the upstream region for the orifice installed near the channel wall is larger than that for the orifice installed at intermediate position between the walls. Thus, it is found that in operations, determinations of orifice position by numerical investigations of the discharge current oscillation and thrust efficiency are required.