Simulation Based Design of Plasma Thrusters

Electric propulsion technology, called Hall effect or stationary plasma thrusters, offers a significant weight reduction compared with traditional chemical propulsion systems. In Plasma Thrusters that special type of Electric thrusters, a stream of electrons bombards, generating a plasma that is accelerated to produce very high specific impulse for applications in the vacuum of space where less absolute power is needed.

The operation of ion thrusters in space constitutes a very interesting active plasma experiment, and the associated plasma physical dynamics are only poorly understood. We can give a detailed insight and investigation of the thruster-induced plasma environment and describe related phenomena with numerical simulation with which we attempt to explore the main dynamical phenomena in this environment.