Progress in combined device/plume modeling is presented for a Teflon-fed, pulsed plasma thruster from plasma generation to the plume far field. In this work we apply a one-dimensional unsteady model for the plasma generation and acceleration process. A new kinetic ablation algorithm is employed to calculate the Teflon ablation rate as a function of plasma parameters. A near cathode sheath model...

Assessment of thruster induced contamination of critical surfaces is the important and necessary stage of International Space Station (ISS) component design. Plume contamination models aimed at the prediction of the spatial distribution of contaminant mass fluxes have been developed in the recent years for various ISS thrusters based on vacuum chamber and space flight experiments and empirical ...

From Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle to the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex; we develop the theory and generate implementable time efficient trajectories for a testbed autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). This paper is the beginning of the journey from theory to implementation. We begin by considering pure motion trajectories and move into a rectangular trajectory which is a concatenation of pur...

Abstract The present work is part of a wider project aimed at improving the description plasma dynamics during production phase Helicon Plasma Thruster. In particular, was focused on development chemical model for Argon- and Xenon-based plasma. developed consists collisional radiative suitable to describe 1 s 2 p excited levels. meant be complementary 3D-VIRTUS, numerical tool which enforces fl...

Surface properties of Hall-effect thruster channel walls play an important role in the performance and lifetime of the device. Physical models of near-wall effects are beginning to be incorporated into thruster simulations, and these models must account for evolution of channel surface properties due to thruster operation. Results from this study show differences in boron nitride channel surfac...

Sizing methods can be used to get a first estimate of the required Hall thruster dimensions and operating conditions for a given input power and a corresponding thrust level. After a review of the existing methods, a new approach, which considers the three characteristic thruster dimensions, i.e. the channel length, the channel width and the channel mean diameter as well as the magnetic field, ...