INFLUENCE OF WALL SCATTERING EFFECT ON ELECTRONS GAS DYNAMICS PARAMETERS IN ELECTRIC PROPULSION THRUSTERS WITH CLOSED ELECTRON DRIFT

Abstract

The analysis is represented of some works devoted to the mathematical modeling of processes in plasma-ion thrusters and Hall effect thrusters. It is shown that the common in these works is the use of approximate forms of the equations of gas dynamics, which are applicable to the description of relatively dense gases, but not to analyze the processes in the rarefied plasma of electric propulsion thrusters. As a result, the above mathematical models do not represent the processes that are significantly responsible for the values of the thruster operating parameters.
Authors try to partially correct this drawback by insertion into the initial approximate forms of the equations written for a point in the plasma volume, the parameters that actually represent the boundary effects and should be written not in the equations of gas dynamics themselves, but in the boundary conditions for these equations.
The most complete forms of the necessary equations are given in this paper. It is shown that it is necessary to take into account electrons thermal conductivity as well as at least one (radial-azimuth) component of viscosity tensor to describe the "wall scattering" effect.
It is concluded that the most productive approach in mathematical modeling is to write the most complete forms of equations with their subsequent simplification – removing the terms responsible for the processes recognized on the basis of primary numerical estimates as such, which can be neglected.