Ion beam production cost of a xenon cusp ion thruster
Conference
·
OSTI ID:6224012
A theoretical study of a xenon cusp ion thruster, a discharge chamber of which has a hemispherical shape with a three-grid-beam-acceleration electrode system, is described. An analysis for a discharge plasma is carried out on the basis of the free-fall model obtained by Tonks and Langmuir (1929), but several assumptions are introduced to consider a ring-cusp magnetic field. A numerical technique used to obtain an effective transparency of the grid system to ions is a convergent, two dimensional numerical model for cylindrically symmetric beamlets. Simple algebraic equations are developed that can be used to calculate an ion beam production cost and an average Maxwellian electron temperature in a discharge chamber. The theoretical results for the ion beam production cost are compared with those obtained through an experiment. 12 references.
- OSTI ID:
- 6224012
- Report Number(s):
- AIAA-Paper-87-1077; CONF-870558-
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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