Plasma injector is a core component in an electrothermal-chemical (ETC) launcher. Its workstate directly influences the whole system's launch efficiency. The interaction betweenplasma and propellants is a very important mechanism in ETC technology development.Based on the transient radiation model and open air plasma jet experiment, the mechanismof plasma ignition process is analyzed. Results show that the surface of local solidpropellant grain can quickly achieve the ignition point by early transient plasma radiation.But it needs enough time to maintain the high energy flow to make self-sustainedcombustion of solid propellant grains. Because of the limited space characteristics oftransient radiation, the near-field propellant grains can gain enough energy by the strongtransient radiation to be ignited and achieve self-sustained combustion. The far-fieldpropellant grains mainly gain the energy by the activated particles in plasma jet to be ignitedand self-sustained combustion. Experiments show that plasma jet always has a high flowvelocity in the area of the cartridge. Compared with conventional ignition, the solidpropellant grains can obtain more quick and uniform ignition and self-sustained combustionby this kind of ablation controlled arc (ACA) plasma via energy skin effect of propellantgrains, pre-heat temperature mechanism and high efficient jet diffusion.
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