Abstract
AbstractFor several years, experimental investigations with magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters have been conducted at the Institute for Space Systems (IRS). In order to achieve a better understanding of these thrusters, numerical procedures to calculate these MPD accelerators have been applied. A theoretical model for the calculation of the current, electron temperature and flow distribution in self‐field MPD thrusters has been developed. The extended Ohm's law has been applied to calculate the current contour lines, the electron energy equation is taken to calculate the electron temperature distribution and a two‐dimensional flow code is used to obtain the velocity, pressure and heavy particles temperature distributions. With both temperature distributions, a thermal non‐equilibrium in the plasma flow is obtained. The gas dynamic equations are solved by a finite volume code EUFLEX, which was transformed to cylindrical co‐ordinates and extended for the implementation of j × B and heat source terms. The electromagnetic discharge equation and the electron energy equation are transformed into curvilinear co‐ordinates and solved for the steady phase by a modified Gauss–Seidel algorithm. A comparison of the numerical and experimental results for different currents is presented and discussed.
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