| Project/Area Number |
60460073
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Aerospace engineering
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| Research Institution | University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
ARAKAWA Yoshihiro Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering University of Tokyo, 工学部, 助教授 (50134490)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
NAKAHARA Masaru Assistant, Faculty of Engineering, Univ. of Tokyo, 工学部, 助手 (70134492)
OGIWARA Koji Assistant, Faculty of Engineering, Univ. of Tokyo, 工学部, 助手 (30092175)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1985 – 1986
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 1986)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥7,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥7,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1986: ¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000)
Fiscal Year 1985: ¥4,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,400,000)
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| Keywords | Permanent Magnet / Thuruster Performance / MPD; Arcjet / Specific Impulse / Thrust Efficiency / 推進効率 / 放電 |
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| Research Abstract |
With a steady-state operating MPD arc thruster, the discharge current cannot be made as large as is possible with its quasi-steady counterpart. As a result, the electromagnetic acceleration effect produced by the self-induced magnetic field is not large enough. One common approach to overcoming this drawback is to apply an external magnetic field to the discharge region by means of a solenoidal coil. However, this method is not necessarily the best for the thruster system as a whole because of the accompanying increase in its weight and addition of the power supply that is required to produce a given field. The purpose of this study is to overcome this problem through the use of a permanent magnet in place of a solenoidal coil and thereby achieve an MPD thruster with high thruster performance.
The thruster performances obtained under typical operating conditions are as follows: When argon was used as the propellant, the specific impulse was 1000 sec at a discharge current of 400 A. That translates into a rather low thrust efficiency of 4.5 %. In contrast to this, when hydrogen was used as the propellant, the specific impulse and thrust efficiency both rose as the discharge current was increased. At a discharge current of 400 A, thrust of 68 mN, specific impulse of 7700 sec and thrust efficiency of 25 % were obtained. It is comparable to the level of efficiency that is obtained with ordinary thrusters when a solenoidal coil is used.
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