High-Power Plasma Flows Generated by Nanosecond Vacuum Surface Flashover of Polymeric Materials at 80 kV

In this paper, we studied the process of vacuum surface flashover of several polymeric materials initiated by 80-kV, 15-ns pulses with peak discharge current 3 kA. We measured breakdown propagation speed, energy input to the discharge, full ion charge and directional pattern of the plasma flow, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on plasma science 2019-06, Vol.47 (6), p.2838-2846
Main Authors: Emlin, Rafail V., Morozov, Pavel A., Punanov, Ivan F., Lisenkov, Vasily V., Shcherbakov, Yevgeny N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Average velocity
Current measurement
Discharge
Discharges (electric)
Energy measurement
Energy transfer
Flood peak
Generators
High-voltage surface flashover
Ion charge
Ions
nanosecond discharge
particle beams
plasma thrusters
Plasmas
Polyethylenes
Polymers
Polymethyl methacrylate
Polytetrafluoroethylene
Propellant consumption
Surface discharges
Surface flashover
Thermal conductivity
Thrust
Velocity
Voltage measurement
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Summary:In this paper, we studied the process of vacuum surface flashover of several polymeric materials initiated by 80-kV, 15-ns pulses with peak discharge current 3 kA. We measured breakdown propagation speed, energy input to the discharge, full ion charge and directional pattern of the plasma flow, the full energy of the particle flow, propellant mass loss, and thrust for polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), polyethylene (PE), and polymethyl metacrylate (PMMA). In the case of PTFE, we obtained the maximum absolute values of thrust ( 4.7~\mu \text{N}\cdot \text{s} ) and the full energy (66 mJ). The values of average mass velocity for all materials lie in the range of 3-7 km/s; values of the average velocity of ions lie in the range of 60-85 km/s. Directional patterns of charge and mass are similar and have distinct symmetry in equatorial and meridional planes. We estimated the temperature of the dielectric surface within a model of energy transfer from the discharge channel to the surface due to thermal conductivity. We showed that at this power level ( \sim 10^{7} W) and short duration of high-current stage of the discharge ( \sim 10^{-8} s), the propellant is consumed mainly during the stage of plasma channel formation.
ISSN:0093-3813
1939-9375
DOI:10.1109/TPS.2019.2914335