Study on the influence of cathode and anode propellant mass flow rates on applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thruster performance

The effects of cathode and anode propellant mass flow rates on applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thruster(AF-MPDT)performance were studied. The plume parameters and thruster working parameters including discharge voltage, discharge current and applied magnetic field were measured, and performance parameters including thrust, specific impulse and efficiency were calculated. By changing the proportion of anode and cathode gas supply, the influence of initial gas distribution on the performance and physical mechanism of the thruster was analyzed. The results show that both thrust and efficiency increase with the proportion of cathode gas supply, but when it increases to a certain percentage the thruster performance declines due to instability, which indicates the existence of the best proportion of anode and cathode gas supply and its significant influence on thruster performance.