Numerical simulation of stationary plasma thruster plume

Using 2D axisymmetrical model, a hybrid particle-fluid model was used to model plasma dynamics of the stationary plasma thruster (SPT) plume, which includes the particle in cell (PIC) method and the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The randomly sampled frequency (RSF) method was applied to solving the collision process between the atoms and the ions. Three different computational conditions were contrasted, which are ways of charge assignment, models of electron moving and setting of the SPT outlet parameters. The ion current density and the ion density of the computations were compared with these of the experiments results at 0.1 m, 0.5 m and 1.0 m to the SPT exit. The present result shows that the computations, including the ion density near the thruster axis and the ion current density, satisfactorily agree with the experiments by charge assignment for linear weighting in 2D, electron moving for constant entropy model, and setting outlet parameters of the thruster by experiments.