Preliminary Study on a Visualized Cylindrical Hall Thruster

Abstract

To evaluate the phenomena occurring in cylindrical Hall thrusters and to improve their performance, a visualized CHT with a glass discharge chamber and eight bar-shaped magnets were designed and fabricated. Through experimental evaluation, it was confirmed that the plasma produced in the discharge chamber and the plume downstream of the thruster are visible in proximity and that the estimated thruster performance is almost the same as that of the conventional CHTs, despite the visualization (thrust of 2.3 mN, specific impulse of 820 s). Further improvement of the CHT will be useful as a method for evaluating the Test Facility Effect and as a device for promoting understanding of electric propulsion systems.