The characteristics of ion wind thruster based on dielectric barrier discharge in near space

Abstract The experimental results show that when the pressure is constant, with the increase of power, the thrust-power ratio of the thruster decreases, and the wind speed and thrust increase, but the increase rate gradually decreases and finally tends to be stable；When the pressure is 5.5 kPa, The rate of increase in thrust decreases the slowest, that is, the thruster has the maximum thrust potential at 5.5 kPa, and when the input power is greater than 75 W, the relative maximum thrust can be generated, reaching 14.8 μN; At the same time, with the increase of input power, the thrust - power ratio increases first and then decreases; When the input power is constant in the range of 15–65 W, as the air pressure increases, the wind speed decreases, and the thrust and thrust-power ratios all have local extremes, that is, when the air pressure is 8 kPa, it reaches the regional maximum, the maximum is 12.7 μN and 0.45 μN/W, respectively, at 16 kPa, it reaches the minimum value of the area, and the minimum is 4 μN and 0.14 μN/W, respectively. By comparing the discharge images under different atmospheric pressures, it can be concluded that the thrust generated by the accelerated collision of particles with a single short-time large current pulse is less than that generated by the accelerated collision of ions with a long-time small high-frequency pulse discharge, and the particle collision probability is the main reason affecting the wind speed; Meanwhile, with the increase of input power, the “virtual electrode” formed by the accumulation of positive ion space charge reduces the increase rate of wind speed and thrust.