Imperial College London
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DrAaronKnoll

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Aeronautics

Reader in Spacecraft Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7580a.knoll Website

 
 
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Location

 

343City and Guilds BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Ryan:2016:10.2514/1.B36091,
author = {Ryan, C and Wantock, T and Harle, T and Knoll, A},
doi = {10.2514/1.B36091},
journal = {Journal of Propulsion and Power},
pages = {1544--1549},
title = {Performance Characterization of the Low-Power Halo Electric Propulsion System},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.B36091},
volume = {32},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Performance measurements have been obtained of a novel propulsion concept called the Halo thruster under development within the University of Surrey. The Halo thruster, a type of cusped-field thruster with close similarity to the cylindrical Hall thruster, is motivated by the need for low-power and low-cost electric propulsion for the small satellite sector. Two versions of the device are investigated in this study: a design using permanent magnets at high magnetic-field strength and a design using electromagnets with moderate field strength. While operating at 200 W discharge power, which is of particular interest to power-limited small satellite platforms, the permanent-magnet design achieved a maximum thrust efficiency of 8% at a specific impulse of approximately 900 s using a krypton propellant. By comparison, the electromagnet design achieved a maximum thrust efficiency of 28% at a specific impulse of approximately 1500 s at 200 W using a xenon propellant. For higher levels of power (tested up to 800 W), the performance of the electromagnetic design saturated at approximately 25% thrust efficiency using krypton and 30% using xenon. The thrust efficiency of the permanent-magnet design appeared to increase monotonically up to 600 W reaching a maximum value of 14%.
AU  - Ryan,C
AU  - Wantock,T
AU  - Harle,T
AU  - Knoll,A
DO  - 10.2514/1.B36091
EP  - 1549
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 0748-4658
SP  - 1544
TI  - Performance Characterization of the Low-Power Halo Electric Propulsion System
T2  - Journal of Propulsion and Power
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.B36091
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/52661
VL  - 32
ER  -
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