Performance investigation of an argon fueled magnetoplasmadynamic thruster with applied magnetic field

Abstract

In the present paper, a density-based central-upwind magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code has been used to get insight into the acceleration mechanism of the applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters. The magnetic field is axially applied by an external coil surrounding the anode and interacts with the discharge current and the induced azimuthal current to produce thrust. In the present work, the numerical modeling of applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters is performed with a separate magnetostatic code to produce external magnetic field from permanent magnets, and the density-based method is used to compute the resulting flow field from the MHD equations. The numerical model is applied to the NASA Lewis Research Center 100-kW magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster which is experimentally and numerically well documented to demonstrate its capability to capture the main characteristics of plasma acceleration and thrust production in such a device. The code is then used to investigate the thruster performance operating in the applied magnetic field strength range 10–100 mT at discharge currents of 750–2000 A with a constant mass flow rate of 0.1 g/s. The effect of the applied magnetic field inside and outside of the thruster is investigated and reported.