RESEARCH ON ENHANCEMENT OF IMPULSE FOR ELECTROTHERMAL PULSED PLASMA THRUSTERS ONBOARD SMALL SATELLITES

本文通过实验和数值模拟相结合的方法，对电热PPT进行了研究，以了解物理现象，改善推力性能。改变聚四氟乙烯电热PPTs放电室的长度和直径，以寻找在卫星极低能量工作时PPT头的最佳配置。进行了初始脉冲钻头测量，并在最佳PPT配置下进行了长时间运行和耐久性测试。PPT是以每发2.43J的小储能运行的。放电室直径为1.0 mm、绝缘子长度为9.0 mm的PPT稳定地产生了250μns的最高冲击钻头，最高推力效率为18%。在耐力测试中，在2.43J/发的5.3万发操作中，总冲量约为5 ns，如图2所示。最后，建立了PPT系统的工程模型。

Electrothermal PPT has been studied in order to understand physical phenomena and improve thrust performances with both experiments and numerical simulations. The length and diameter of a Teflon discharge room of electrothermal PPTs are changed to find the optimum configuration of PPT heads in very low energy operations for the satellite. Initial impulse bit measurements are conducted, and long operations and endurance tests are also carried out with the optimum PPT configuration. The PPT was operated with a small stored energy of 2.43J per shot. The PPT with a discharge room diameter of 1.0mm and an insulator length of 9.0mm stably generated the highest impulse bit of 250μNs with the highest thrust efficiency of 18%. In the endurance test, the total impulse of about 5Ns, as shown in Fig.2, was achieved in 53,000-shot operation with 2.43J/shot. Finally, the engineering model of PPT system was developed.