霍尔推力器阳极加热机制及设计优化

The anode overheating not only causes the reduction of the discharge stability and thrust efficiency, but also can be treated as a kind of failure mode of Hall thrusters, which directly causes the discharge current and power consumption abnormally increased, even immediately shut down. Therefore, in order to solve the anode overheating problem, the anode thermal process theoretical model is established. The model analysis results indicate that the anode sheath forming process is core process effecting the thermal power of the anode, and the anode current density and magnetic field strength are the key factors in the sheath forming process. The research results show that the anode sheath potential drop increases with the anode current density. In the typical plasma parameters near the anode region, the negative anode sheath will form if the anode current density is less than 600A/m². Furthermore, the anode thermal power also increases with the magnetic field strength near the anode region, therefore, keeping the anode position in the zero magnetic field region will be the optimized design to reduce the thermal power of the anode.