An approach based on strong electromagnetic acceleration produced simple closed-form analytic expressions for the ablated mass and total impulse per pulse for rectangular, breech-fed pulsed plasma thrusters. The theoretical model is validated by comparisons to experiments of a wide range of geometries and operating conditions showing very good agreement. The produced expressions quantify contributions from electromagnetic and gas dynamic acceleration; confirm, explain, and generalize trends observed by experiments; and offer additional guidelines for thruster improvements.


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    Title :

    Theoretical Formulation for the Performance of Rectangular, Breech-Fed Pulsed Plasma Thrusters



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2019-04-29


    Size :

    8 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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