| Issue |
Volume 2, 2011
Progress in Propulsion Physics
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|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 617 - 628 | |
| Section | Electric Thrusters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/eucass/201102617 | |
| Published online | 01 October 2012 | |
Investigation of discharge channel wall material influence on lifetime of hall effect thruster with high specific impulse
Keldysh Research Center Onezhskaya Str. 8, Moscow 125438, Russia
Results of 500-hour life tests of the 900-watt Hall-thruster laboratory model with the specific impulse of 2000 s are presented. The thruster discharge channel walls were manufactured from 60% BN + 40% SiO2 and >90% BN hot-pressed ceramics. The predicted total lifetime was ∼3000 h for both wall materials in spite of greater erosion resistance of pure BN in comparison with BN-SiO2 mixture. To clarify the accompanying phenomena, the following diagnostics were carried out. The surface microstructure and composition insulators were investigated by means of electron microscopy and X-ray fluorescence analysis and nearwall plasma parameters were measured with flat Langmuir probes. The obtained distributions of plasma parameters were compared with the results of stationary one-dimensional (1D) hydrodynamic modeling of discharge channel.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2011