立方体式考夫曼离子推力器极靴结构设计

考夫曼离子推力器因具有高比冲、高效率、长寿命等特点，是应用于航天器电推进类型之一。过去研究主要集中在轴对称柱状结构考夫曼离子推力器，然而对于未来模块化立方体卫星，立方体构型推力器非常适合多推力器的组合、多推力器羽流集中中和，结构紧密并且减少航天器附件。为此，基于自主设计的立方体式考夫曼离子推力器，采用三维数值仿真方法对推力器放电室进行了计算分析，获取了不同阴极极靴内径下推力器放电室磁场分布，对比研究了不同极靴构型下放电室电子密度分布和电子温度分布。结果发现，增大阴极极靴内径使得磁场分布均匀性变差，放电室内壁电子温度升高，电子损耗增大，放电室出口离子密度降低。因此，对于本立方体考夫曼离子推力器，长宽高为15mm×12.5mm×15mm的阴极极靴构型最佳，既可保持较低的壁面电子温度，又有利推力器出口的离子均匀性。

Structure Design of the Pole Piece of Cubic Kaufman Ion Thruster

The Kaufman ion thruster is one of the types of electric propulsion used in spacecraft due to its high specific impulse, high efficiency, and long life. In the past, the research mainly focuses on the Kaufman ion thruster with axisymmetric cylindrical structure. However, for the future modular cube satellite, the cube configuration thruster is well suited for the combination of multiple thrusters, the collective neutralization of the plume of multiple thrusters, the compact structure and the reduction of spacecraft accessories. Based on the self-designed cubic Kaufman ion thruster, the three-dimensional numerical simulation method is used to calculate and analyze the thruster discharge chamber, and the magnetic field distribution of the thruster discharge chamber under different cathode pole shoe inner diameters is obtained. The electron density distribution and electron temperature distribution in the discharge chamber under different pole shoe configurations are comparatively studied. The results show that increasing the inner diameter of the cathode shoe makes the distribution uniformity of the magnetic field worse, the electron temperature on the inner wall of the discharge chamber increases, the electron loss increases, and the ion density at the outlet of the discharge chamber decreases. Therefore, for this cubic Kaufman ion thruster, the cathode pole shoe with a length, width and height of 15mm×12.5mm×15mm is the best configuration, which can not only maintain a lower electron temperature on the wall, but also facilitate the ion uniformity at the thruster outlet.