Study On The Influence Of The Plate Configuration Of Pulsed Plasma Thrusters On Their Performance

Pulsed plasma thruster(Pulsed Plasma Thruster,PPT)has the advantages of high specific impulse,small thrust,accurate and adjustable,and long life.It can be used to perform attitude control,resistance compensation and constellation phase control of microsatellites.In recent years,with the launch of a large number of low-orbit micromass satellites,there is a large demand for low-cost,low-power and high-performance propulsion systems.More and more attention has been paid to PPT,and how to improve the performance of PPT has become a key research issue.To improve the performance of the PPT,the effect of the plate configuration of the principle prototype is investigated.The main research contents include:study the plate length,the distance between the propellant end surface to the spark plug discharge end face,the influence of plate shape on PPT performance,and the influence of plate spacing,width and working medium aspect ratio on PPT performance by numerical simulation.It is found that with the increase of the plate length,the ablation quality of the working medium gradually decreases,but the impulse gradually increases and the specific impulse gradually increases;when the length of the plate exceeds 37mm,the impulse decreases instantly,indicating that the performance improvement of the plate length to the PPT is limited.The distance between the propellant end surface and the end surface of the spark plug discharge is 2.5mm.The average ablation quality of the rectangular,trapezoidal and triangular plates is much less than the average ablation quality of the original plate shape under the same condition,and.the impulse is also decreased;the plate thickness decreases along the length,so the plate thickness should be consistent and not too small,considering the current skin effect,the plate thickness is not too large.The thickness of the plate can be 5mm when considered.Through the numerical simulation study of the plate spacing,width and the same working medium exposed area,it is found that increasing the plate spacing and width alone can not effectively improve the PPT performance.With the same propellant exposure area,the larger aspect ratio PPT was better,and the PPT size of 34mm 11mm in this experiment.