Numerical simulation of stationary plasma thruster plume

The stationary plasma thruster (SPT) is used on many communications satellites. The high velocity propellant ion at large scattering angle of the SPT plume could damage the host spacecraft. A hybrid particle-fluid model is used to model plasma dynamics of the SPT plume, which includes the particle-in-cell (PIC) method and the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The electron fluid always can be described by the model of isothermal. The model of variable electron temperature or an extra hybrid temperature model could include isothermal in the plume far-field and variable electron temperature in the plume near-field. The parameters of the SPT exit have a significant influence on simulation of the SPT plume and can be set by uniform distribution and fitting experiment data. Several different models and numerical arithmetic cases are calculated and their results are compared with the results of experiment respectively. In conclusion, from the comparison between experiment and simulation, the hybrid model of isothermal and variable electron temperature is better than other electron fluid models, and the method of fitting experiment data is more effective than the method of uniform distribution for the setting of the SPT exit parameters.