Modeling the Effect of Plasma-Wall Interaction in a Hall Thruster (original) (raw)

Among many reasons limiting the efficiency and lifetime of a Hall thruster, the most critical is the wear of the surface layer of the ceramic walls due to the plasma-wall interactions. The plasma-wall interaction is a function of wall potential, which in turn is determined by the secondary electron emission and sputtering yield. In this paper, we document the numerical result of the Hall thruster dynamics in the presence of plasma-wall interaction in one and twodimensional framework. A comparison is made with the two dimensional simulation. The changes in the plasma density, the potential and the azimuthal electron velocity due to the sputter yield are significant in the acceleration region. The plasma number density, temperature, velocity and potential decrease in the presence of the SEE and the sputter yield. However, the neutral number density and the velocity do not exhibit any significant change. The neutral velocity, which decreases initially, starts increasing toward the exit consistent with the computed neutral density profile. Numerical potential distribution shows a good agreement with experimental data reported in the literature.