Performance and plume characteristics of a Hall-effect thruster with asymmetrical gas supply.

An analysis of the discharge behavior of a symmetrically designed Hall-effect thruster (HET) under an asymmetrical condition will aid the understanding of the working characteristics of HETs from different perspectives. Therefore, in this paper, with experimental methods, the asymmetrical gas distribution inside the channel of a HET was realized by supplying the gas asymmetrically, and changes in both the performance and plume parameters with the degree of asymmetry were measured. Both the discharge current and thrust were found to vary nonlinearly with the degree of asymmetry; moreover, the discharge mode also shifted, as observed from the variations in the discharge current and oscillation. Furthermore, the relationships between the plume ion current and energy distributions and the degree of asymmetry were determined and further used to explain the nonlinear change in the thrust. Overall, the findings of this study strengthen the understanding of the physics of HET discharge. • Variations of performance and plume parameters show consistency as the degree of asymmetrical neutral distribution changes. • Discharge of high-density region under an asymmetrical neutral distribution dominates the overall thruster operation status. • Deflection of plume are the decisive factors for the reduced thrust under an asymmetrical neutral distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]