Departures from thermal, chemical equilibrium of a plasma flow in a low-power arcjet thruster with a 1:2 nitrogen/hydrogen mixture as the working gas have been studied by axisymmetric numerical simulations. Electrons, ions, atoms, and molecules are represented as separate chemical species in the plasma mixtures of nitrogen and hydrogen. The predicted temperatures and densities of the electrons, heavy particles, and plasma velocity are presented throughout the whole flowfield of the nozzle. Significant temperature discrepancies between electrons and heavy species have been found in the near-anode wall region, which indicates that thermal nonequilibrium largely controls the near-anode electron densities and furtherly governs current attachment on the anode. The distributions of nitrogen and hydrogen species inside the arcjet thruster are also examined. It is found that the enrichments of hydrogen species at the center of the thruster and anode surface are due to different reasons. Some important kinetic processes that determine the dissociation and ionization processes of nitrogen/hydrogen species are presented and the relative importance of these kinetic processes is analyzed. In the anode region, the ionization rate of the hydrogen species is much larger than that of the nitrogen species, which infers that the charge carriers for electric conduction to anode are most contributed from the ionization of hydrogen species.


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    Title :

    Chemical Nonequilibrium Modeling of Low-Power Nitrogen/Hydrogen Arcjet Thrusters



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2016




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    55.50 Luftfahrzeugtechnik / 55.50
    Local classification TIB:    770/7040



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