Hydrodynamic Efficiency of Ablation Propulsion with Pulsed Ion Beam

Abstract

This paper presents the hydrodynamic efficiency of ablation plasma produced by pulsed ion beam on the basis of the ion beam‐target interaction. We used a one‐dimensional hydrodynamic fluid compressible to study the physics involved namely an ablation acceleration behavior and analyzed it as a rocketlike model in order to investigate its hydrodynamic variables for propulsion applications. These variables were estimated by the concept of ablation driven implosion in terms of ablated mass fraction, implosion efficiency, and hydrodynamic energy conversion. Herein, the energy conversion efficiency of 17.5% was achieved. In addition, the results show maximum energy efficiency of the ablation process (ablation efficiency) of 67% meaning the efficiency with which pulsed ion beam energy‐ablation plasma conversion. The effects of ion beam energy deposition depth to hydrodynamic efficiency were briefly discussed. Further, an evaluation of propulsive force with high specific impulse of 4000s, total impulse of 34mN and momentum to energy ratio in the range of μN/W was also analyzed.