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Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699

Modelling of an Electromagnetic Space Propulsion System

for Pulse mode operation
S.Sarathkumar 1, K.Periyannaswamy 2, Dr.S.Thanigaiarasu 3
1,2.M.E Aerospace technology, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Anna University, MIT campus Chennai
3. Asst prof, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Anna University, MIT campus Chennai

Abstract

The chemical rocket propulsion has limitations while applied to space application, with respect to
specific impulse, delta-v, volume and stored energy, which can be overcome by electric propulsion system.
Among various type of Electric propulsion system, the electromagnetic propulsion has added advantages for
many space applications. In this paper an electromagnetic propulsion system is considered known as
Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters (MPD). The MPD thrust works based on principle of Lorentz force.
The thruster is modeled based on to operate it in pulsed mode to
generate instantaneous peak thrust. This model includes the designing of high-current power supply, ignition
circuit, and electrodes. Simulations have been performed by considering all the parameters involved in the
model. The design parameters are analyzed for optimum value to get maximum thrust force.

© 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Noorul Islam
Centre for Higher Education Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Electric propulsion; Magnetoplasmadymanic; plasma; thrust;Lorentz force; Specific impulse;Simulink;Catiya

1. INTRODUCTION
The possibility of electrical space propulsion has been long recognized, starting with Robert
Goddard in 1906 and Herman Oberth in 1929. though the lack of practical power sources limited any
serious consideration of electrical propulsion methods until 1948 when the first feasibility studies were
conducted, and even then no serious development was undertaken until the late 1950s. Early
developmental work focused on arcjet thrusters This period also coincided with the development of ion
engines and later resistojets and nuclear thrusters, where the heated gas was thermodynamically expanded
in the convergent divergent nozzle. Work on magnetogasdynamic thrusters started in the late 1960s,
based on the concepts of magnetohydrodynamic thrusters, but this work stalled as the machinery required
to generate programmed electric and magnetic fields in a MGD thruster channel was prohibitively large
for only modest thrust levels. Later work began on magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters only after an
accidental discovery whereby the flow rate and pressure in a thermal arcjet thruster was reduced to very

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-9791131138; fax:044-22237038.

E-mail address: thanigaiarasus@annauniv.edu

1877-7058 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.06.424
3692 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699

low levels which unexpectedly resulted in very high specific thrusts. This discovery brought renewed
interest to the study of the much simplified MPD thruster.

NASA is currently researching both pulsed and continuous forms of MPDs with hydrogen or
lithium as a propellant. Testing for these thrusters has demonstrated exhaust velocities of 100,000 meters
pounds) at power levels of 1
megawatt. For perspective, this exhaust velocity will allow a spacecraft to travel roughly 11 times the top
speed of the space shuttle (18,000 mph)[4].

2. ELECTRICAL PRINCIPLES
At the most general level, electric thrusters use the interactions between charged particles to
transfer momentum to a propellant stream, and thus it is important to have a good understanding of the
possible forces that may be exerted between charged particle, electrical currents, and magnetic fields[2].

2.1 Coulomb Force

The Coulomb force refers to the force that charged particles exert on each other, either
individually or by their combined effect as an electric field. Individually, the force that one charge feels as
the result of the presence of another is given
1 q1 q 2
F12 r2 1 (2-1)
4 0 r2
Where, 0 is the electrical constant = 8.988 10 9 N m 2 C 2 , q1 , q 2 are the charges of the two particles
under consideration, r is the distance from q1 to q 2 r21 is the unit vector pointing from q 2 to q1 For the
, .
force exerted on one charge as the result of many other cha
force contribution of each charge as follows
1 q1 q j
F1 r j1 (2.2)
j 4 0 r2

Noting that q1 is constant in this equation, it can be pulled to the front, and the rest of the summation can

charge and the electric field

F qE (2-3)
2.2 Lorentz Force
The Lorentz force refers to the effects of the magnetic field resulting from the flow of current
through a loop. the current through the conductors cause a magnetic field as shown in fig2.1(a) below,
and the interaction between the flowing electric charges in the rod and the magnetic field produce a force
on the rod that cause it to accelerate away from the current source. This is known as the Lorentz Force,
and it can be applied to any conductive material [2].
Instead of rod if sparks are generated between the rails which is actually just very hot gasses
that have had electrons stripped from the individual atoms. Since the gas now contains free electrical
charges it can conduct electricity and can act as the conductor between the two rails of the
accelerator. Matter that has been heated to the point that it becomes electrically conductive is called a
plasma. Thus figure 2.1(b) gives the basic elements of a complete MPD thruster.
 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699 3693

Figure 2.1(a) Example of Lorentz force; (b) Example of thrust generation in plasma using Lorentz force

The resultant force is the cross product of the current and magnetic field vectors, and the force is therefore
normal to the J and B plane.

F J B (2-4)
summing the Coulomb and Lorentz contributions to force yields the relationship
E' E v B (2-5)

The effective electric field is defined so that the force felt by a charge as a result of the electric field is
defined the same as
F q( E v B) (2-6)
2.3 Plasma
plasma is considered as 4th state of matter ( other than solid, liquid and gas). It is a substance similar
to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. The presence of a non-negligible number of
charge carriers makes the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic
fields. Quasineutrality of plasma requires that plasma currents close on themselves in electric circuits.
Such circuits follow Kirchhoff's circuit laws and possess a resistance and inductance [ref 4].

3. DESIGN

breakdown voltage and product of pressure and gab between electrode as V = f(pd) as below[ref 7],

a( pd )
V (3-1)
ln( pd ) b
Where, b = ln( A / ln ( 1 + 1 / r ))

V ->the breakdown voltage in volts,

p -> the pressure, d -> the gap distance.
a and b and are constants depend upon the composition of the gas
r = townsend secondary ionization coefficient
For argon, A=235, a=13.6,r=0.095

Consider ra=5mm and rc=2.5mm as shown in figure 2.3 ,the distance between ra and rc is d = ra-rc
which is 2.5mm . substituting a,b,p and d equation 3-1 we get required voltage to generate arc between
the electrodes .
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3.2 Snowplow Model

The electric circuit of thruster is described by snowplow model which is expressed as[ref 5],
d
V (( Lo L p ) I ) RI (3-2)
dt
Where,
Lo ->parasitic inductance of the circuit
R -> parasitic resistance of the circuit
Lp -> Inductance due to generated plasma

3.3 MPD Electrodes

The electrodes should withstand high operating temperature and so tungsten rod is used for
cathode and copper or steel may use for anode. the anode considered in this model is flared shaped nozzle
with flared angle of 64.24 degree which gives optimum effect for self-field MPD thruster(ref 8).

(a) (b)

Figure2.2 Catia model for anode assembly (a) Front view (b) Side view

(a) (b)
Figure2.3 Dimensions of anode assembly (a)front view (b)Side view

catiya design for anode is shown in fig2.2 which dimensions show in figure2.3. The cathode is
simply a tungsten rod of 2.5mm radius with sharp conical edge at front end.The thrust generation of this
assembly is modeled and plots are shown in section 4.

3.4 Current Required

For the electrodes considered in section3.3 let us consider the geometry of copper anode and tungsten
 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699 3695

cathode with radius as ra and rc, in which cathode is placed at centre of hollow anode as show in figure
3.1 below
Anode

ra

rc
Cathode

Figure 3.1 MPD Thruster Electrodes Layout

the thrust generated is a function of the ratio of the anode radius to the cathode radius and the thrust
current which is given by equation below [2],
I2 ra 3
F ln (3-3)
4 rc 4
The thruster under consideration has . thus ratio of radii given as rc/ra=2
Therefore, in order to generate 1 N of thrust requires the current required is,
F4
I 2.2 10 3 A
r 3
ln a
rc 4
(3-4)
The value of mu/4pi is 10^-7. By above equation the thrust rising quadratically at higher currents. At
arc currents of 10 kA the thrust generated is 20 N, 50 kA yields 500 N, and 100 kA yields 2 kN.

3.5 Conceptual diagram

The design of MPD thruster is divided into several functional components. The conceptual diagram
below shows all of the components combine to create a complete MPD thruster. As shown in the figure it
is required to design two circuits 1) Ignition circuit which is high voltage low current circuit to start the
ignition 2) Drive circuit which is high current, low voltage capacitor bank circuit to drive the thruster

Figure 3.2 Mpd thrusters setup

The argon propellant is stored in pressurized tank and the propellant is delivered at constant rate with the
help of regulation system consist of surge tank, solenoid valve and pressure regulator.
3696 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699

3.6 Circuit Diagram

The complete circuit is obtain by combining the ignition and driver circuit with ignition and isolation
transformers T1 and T2 as shown below. The high voltage for ignition is supplied by air core transformer
(20T:20T), and the high current is drained from capacitor bank to generate thrust.

Figure 3.4 circuit diagram of designed MPD thurster containing capacitor bank with capacitance of 150mF

If considered the capacitor bank with capacitance of 150mF as shown in figure,it has capable of
delivering more than 2MW of power..
4. SIMULATION
The matlab and simulink are used to simulate the model discussed for thrust current and thrust
developed.

4.1 THRUST CURRENT

By snowplow model represented in 3.2 the circuit act as series RLC including circuit inductance, the
model will be represented as
di 1 t
L V Ri i(t )dt (4-1)
dt c
di 2
Where VL L and V is the stored voltage across capacitor. RLC series circuit R 1 to avoid
dt 2L LC
oscillation [Ref7].
Arc current
12000

10000

8000
current (Amps)-->

6000

4000

2000

-2000
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
Time (secs)-->

Figure 4.1 Thruster Current Discharge, Simulated

 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699 3697

The insta
figure 4.1 using matlab coding, which extract simulink data to plot the graph. The arc current variation for
various values of R is shown in fig 4.2(a).
The thrust current will also affected by Inductance of the circuit. Thus the plot with increasing inductance
value is given in figure 4.2(b) .

Arc current for various R values

Arc current for various L values
16000 12000
R =7m L =5 uH
14000 R =10m L =10 uH
R =13m 10000
12000 L =15 uH
R =15m L =20 uH
10000 R =20m 8000 L =30 uH
current(Amps)-->

current (Amps)-->
8000
6000
6000

4000
4000

2000
2000

0
0
-2000

-4000 -2000
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01 0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
Time (secs)--> Time (secs)-->

Figure 4.2 (a)Arc current for various R values Figure 4.2 (b)Arc current variations due to inductance

4.2 Thrust Variation with Electrode Ratio

The thrust given by equation 3-3 is the combination of stream wise force contribution from the
radial current, Blowing force from radial current at conical tip and pumping force from radial current.
These forces are function of thrust current and gap between the electrodes.

Considering constant current of 10KA the variation of these forces with respect to electrode ratio
ra/rc is ploted in figure 4.3(a)(b)(c). The total thrust for various value of current is plotted with respect to
electrode ratio is shown in figure4.3(d).

Variation of Blowing Force With Electrode ratio Variation of Blowing Force at Conical Tip With Electrode ratio
30 35

25 30
Blowing force -->

Blowing force -->

20 25

15 20

10 15

5 10
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Electrode ratio --> Electrode ratio -->

Figure 4.3(a)Variation of Blowing force with electrode ratio (b) Varitation of Blowing force at conical tip with electrode ratio

By figure (a) and (b) above it is clear that blowing forces are varying with electrode ratio but the figure
(c) shows that the pumping force is constant for electrode ratio variation.
3698 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699

Variation of Pumping Force With Electrode ratio VARIATION OF TOTAL FORCE WITH ELECTRODE RATIO
6 80

5.8
70
5.6
60
5.4
Pumping force-->

5.2 50

Total force -->

5 40

4.8
30
4.6
20
4.4

10
4.2

4 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Electrode ratio --> Electrode ratio -->

Figure 4.3(c)Variation of Pumping force with electrode ratio (d) Total force with electrode ratio for various current values

The total force is summation of all three forces which is increasing with increase in electrode ratio as
shown in fig d.

4.2 THRUST DEVELOPED

The instantaneous thrust force developed by discharge current is given below
Instentanious Thrust devoloped
18

16

14

12
Thrust(Newton)-->

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
time(sec)--> -3
x 10
Figure 4.4 Instantaneous Thrust, Simulated

On integrating the instant thrust over time gives the total thrust in N-sec

5. CONCLUSION

The Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster modeled gives maximum instantaneous thrust of 15

newton as shown in figure4.4 for respective peak current of 10.5KA which shown in figure4.1 while
considering electrode ratio of 2 with optimum value of R and L. This peak current may vary depend on
circuit resistance and inductance and so the thrust also varies. Thus the circuit is modeled using Simulink
and peak current variation with respect to R and L are plotted in figure4.2.
 S. Sarathkumar et al. / Procedia Engineering 38 (2012) 3691 – 3699 3699

The thrust force component for different electrode ratio is analyzed and plotted in figure4.3.
Based on the plot it is clear that the total thrust is increasing while increasing the electrode ratio. But it
has the limitation while considering other parameters such as mass flow rate of the gas between
electrodes, arc voltage between the electrodes, ionization coefficient of gas etc. Also by figure4.3(d) at
low current there is no sufficient increase in thrust while increasing the electrode ratio. Hence
compromise between these parameters should be carefully considered while constructing these type of
thruster setup.

5.1 Future Work

The designed and simulated model should be implement with an experimental setup with specific
component as mentioned. The thrust of MPD should calculated using Load cell setup and the measured
performance of this thruster package should be measured and compared to the theoretical predictions in
order to validate the models constructed for this type of thruster

Reference:
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science thesis ,May 2007

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[4] Michael R. LaPointe and Pavlos G,

NASA/CR 2001-211114, AIAA 2001 3499,2001

[5] Georg Herdrich, Monika Auweter- -

1173,2006

[6] T.Nageswara Rao,Electrical circuits, Fourth edition,chapter-6, A.R publications, Jun 2000, pp 6.23-6.38
th
[7] L.Lendernez, F.Olc ICPIG, July 12-17 2009, Cancun

Experimental Verification of the Nozzle Shape Optimization for Self-Field MPD Thruster
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