Plasma flows in MPD thrusters

A fundamental description of the plasma acceleration process in magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters is presented. The properties of plasma flows in self-field MPD thrusters are investigated by adopting a stationary, axisymmetric, resistive magnetohydrodynamic plasma model. First, the acceleration process in a cylindrical MPD channel is analyzed by neglecting the gasdynamic pressure term. A class of solutions is presented, which allows for a simple analytical treatment of the flow. The physical and mathematical nature of the flow is thus described in terms of two characteristic parameters: a dimensionless channel length, scaled with the plasma resistive length, and a dimensionless parameter which depends on the applied voltage. Then, the effect of gasdynamic pressure is investigated. The presented approach gives an effective description of the plasma acceleration process and defines a framework for the parametric analysis of plasma flows in MPD thrusters.