Power plants – Reaction motor – Electric – nuclear – or radiated energy fluid heating means
Patent
1990-07-12
1992-05-12
Casaregola, Louis J.
Power plants
Reaction motor
Electric, nuclear, or radiated energy fluid heating means
F02K 1100
Patent
active
051116561
ABSTRACT:
An arcjet thruster is disclosed which has an electrically conductive anode body having an anode cavity therein which defines a nozzle symmetrical about a central axis. The anode cavity has a tandemly arranged divergent recombination portion and a divergent expansion portion. The expansion portion has a greater rate of divergence than the recombination portion. The anode body further preferably comprises a cylindrical constrictor portion upstream and in tandem with the recombination portion. An electrically conductive cylindrical cathode body is coaxially arranged and spaced from the anode body by a gap. An electrical current source connected to the cathode and the anode produces an electrical arc across the gap. A vortex flow of propellant gas is fed through the gap and through the nozzle to produce thrust. The vortex flow of propellant gas pushes the arc through the constrictor into one of the divergent portions of the nozzle. The recombination and expansion portions merge at a transition being between a divergence of 5 and 15 degrees and within a diameter ratio range of the transition to the constrictor of about 1.5 to 4.0. The divergent recombination portion causes a portion of the ionized and disassociated propellant gas passing therethrough to recombine, recovering frozen flow losses prior to entering the expansion portion and increasing the overall energy conversion efficiency of the thruster.
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Physics of Electric Propulsion, Robert G. Jahn, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968 pp. 90-130.
Butler George W.
Simon Mark A.
Casaregola Louis J.
Olin Corporation
Wahl John R.
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