2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Improvement of completely electrodeless helicon plasma thruster using supersonic gas puffing
| Project/Area Number |
16K17843
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Plasma science
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| Research Institution | Chubu University (2018)
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (2016-2017) |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Research Collaborator |
SHINOHARA shunjiro
FURUKAWA takeru
ISHIGAMI yuichi
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | ヘリコンプラズマ / 高周波放電 / 電気推進機 / 中性粒子 / ラバールノズル / プラズマ計測 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
For a neutral particle depletion problem in a helicon plasma thruster, a supersonic gas puffing method and internal gas feeding method has been proposed. The proposed methods supply gas into the inner region of plasma directly. The main objective of these methods are to reduce the depletion of neutral particles in plasma. This phenomenon is considered to limit the increase of electron density. Therefore, the thrust increase, which is proportional to the electron density, is also limited. To address this issue, the proposed methods attempts to supply the neutral particles directly to the generation area of the plasma.
In the case of the supersonic gas puffing method, a focusing gas beam can be generated. However, the amount of gas is too large compared to conventional thruster. The other hand, it's revealed that 51% increased reaction force has been obtained at a radio-frequency power of 3 kW and a gas feeding rate of 100 sccm (Ar) using the internal feeding method.
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| Free Research Field |
プラズマ工学、電気推進工学
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
ヘリコンプラズマスラスタの放電部における燃料ガス枯渇現象は推進性能を制限している可能性があり、本研究はこれの改善による推進性能向上を狙ったものである。高密度な集束ガスビームを生成することで中性粒子が枯渇するプラズマ中心軸に選択的に中性粒子を供給する超音速ガスパフ法を考案し、この評価を行ったが、推進機に適用するにはガス供給量が多すぎる問題が明らかになった。一方、プラズマ中心にアルミナパイプで直接中性粒子を供給する内部供給法を考案し、この実験から推力が1.5倍程度に増加することが確かめられた。プラズマ中の中性粒子の挙動は不明な点が多いが、本研究はこの現象の解明の一助になると考えられる。
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