The miniaturization numerical study on cylindrical resonant cavity of microwave plasma thruster

Summary form only given, as follows. The microwave plasma thruster (MPT) is a new type of electro-thermal propulsive device. Its work principle is to generate a free-floating plasma brought by a microwave discharge breakdown gas in a resonant cavity and the plasma is exhausted from the nozzle to produce thrust. Compare to other electro-thermal propulsive devices, its supreme advantage is no lifetime problem produced by electrode ablation. It was proved that the TM/sub 011/ mode cylindrical resonant cavity structure used for MPT is good. By using a microwave frequency of 2450 MHz in our experimental study, the size of the MPT is too large to be used for spacecraft. The size of a cylindrical resonant cavity of the MPT will be diminished by raising the microwave frequency. In this paper, for a microwave frequency of 4250 MHz and 7500 MHz, the miniaturization numerical study was discussed by analyzing the coupled problem of an electromagnetic, flow field and plasma within a cavity, solved by Maxwell, Navier-Stokes and plasma equations.