Simulating Experimental Conditions of the HIIPER Space Propulsion Device
The Helicon-Injected Inertial Plasma Electrostatic Rocket (HIIPER) is a two-stage electric propulsion system comprising of a helicon plasma source and an inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) device for plasma production and acceleration, respectively. Several diagnostics such as a Faraday cup, spherical Langmuir probe, and gridded energy analyzer have been developed for analyzing various properties of the jet. To supplement these experimental analyses, COMSOL Multiphysics® has been used to create models of the experiment and diagnostics, analyze the electric potential, and predict the unknown heat impinging on geometrically complex diagnostics. COMSOL results regarding the potentials are presented, and preliminary COMSOL results of the thermal studies are shown and compared with experimental results. These comparisons show agreement between the experimental and computational data.
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