The performance of an ablative wall Pulsed Electrothermal (PET) thruster is accurately characterized on a calibrated thrust stand, using polyethylene propellant. The thruster is tested for four configurations of capillary length and pulse length. The exhaust velocity is determined with twin time-of-flight photodiode stagnation probes, and the ablated mass is measured from the loss over ten shots. Based on the measured thrust impulse and the ablated mass, the specific impulse varies from 1000 to 1750 seconds. The thrust to power varies from .05 N/kW (quasi-steady mode) to .10 N/kW (unsteady mode). The thruster efficiency varies from .56 at 1000 seconds to .42 at 1750 seconds. A conceptual design is presented for a 40 kW PET propulsion system. The point design system performance is .62 system efficiency at 1000 seconds specific impulse. The system's reliability is enhanced by incorporating 20, 20 kW thruster modules which are fired in pairs. The thruster design is non-ablative, and uses water propellant, from a central storage tank, injected through the cathode.


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    Titel :

    Investigation of a pulsed electrothermal thruster system


    Beteiligte:
    Burton, R. L. (Autor:in) / Goldstein, S. A. (Autor:in) / Hilko, B. K. (Autor:in) / Tidman, D. A. (Autor:in) / Winsor, N. K. (Autor:in)

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    31.10.1984


    Medientyp :

    Report


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Experimental investigation of the pulsed electrothermal (PET) thruster

    BURTON, R. / GOLDSTEIN, S. / HIKO, B. et al. | AIAA | 1984


    Experimental investigation of the pulsed electrothermal (PET) thruster

    Burton, R. L. / Goldstein, S. A. / Hiko, B. K. et al. | NTRS | 1984


    Theory of the pulsed electrothermal thruster

    BURTON, R. / GOLDSTEIN, S. / TIDMAN, D. et al. | AIAA | 1982


    Initial development of a pulsed electrothermal thruster

    BURTON, RODNEY L. / WANG, SHIH-YING | AIAA | 1991


    Experiments on a repetitively pulsed electrothermal thruster

    BURTON, R. L. / FLEISCHER, D. / GOLDSTEIN, S. A. et al. | AIAA | 1990