Particle Simulation of Pulsed Plasma Thruster Plumes

摘要

This final report summarizes the research carried out on the development of numerical approaches for simulating the plumes of pulsed plasma thrusters. A significant amount of progress has been made in the three years of this grant and this summarized in the 9 journals and conference papers that are included as appendices to this report. Our modeling had made progress in al aspects of simulating these complex devices including Teflon ablation, plasma formation, electro-magnetic acceleration, plume expansion, and particulate transport. Several different pulsed plasma thruster devices were modeled including an electro-thermal device (the PPT-4 developed at the University of Illinois by Dr. Rod Burton), and various micro-PPT's (developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory by Dr. Greg Spanjers and colleagues).