Our research

Operated with propellant as Ar, N2, NH3 and nitrogen/ammonia mixtures, several aspects of the 1kW arcjet thruster performance have been tested, such as its ignition starter character, thrust and specific impulse, lifetime, plume diagnosis and etc. The principle prototype of this 1kW hydrazine arcjet thruster has been developed and the power is 1.09kW, the mass flow rate is 23.7mg/s, the thrust is 122.8mN, the specific impulse is 528s, the efficiency is 28.1%.

Arcjet and its operation

Featured Articles:

[1] Tang, H. B., Zhang, X. A., Liu, Y., Wang, H. X. and Wang, Y. B., “Numerical and Experimental Study of a 1-kW Hydrazine Engineering Design Model Arcjet Thruster,” Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Vol. 27, Issue 1, January, 2014, pp. 16-25

[2] Tang, H. B., Zhang, X. A., Liu, Y., Wang, H. X., Shi, C. B. and Cai, B., “Experimental Study of Startup Characteristics and Performance of a Low-Power Arcjet,” Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 27, No. 1, January-February, 2011, pp. 218-226

[3] Tang, H. B., Zhang, X. A., Liu, Y., Wang, H. X., and Shen Y., “Performance and Preliminary Life Test of a Low Power Hydrazine Engineering Design Model Arcjet,” Aerospace Science and Technology, Vol. 15, 2011, pp. 577-588

[4] Zhang, X. A., Tang, H. B., Liu, Y., Wang, H. X., Xi, C., Effects of propellant type on low power arcjet thruster performance. 19th International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry, Bochum, Germany, July 26-31, 2009

[5] Zhang, X. A., “Experimental Study and Numerical Simulations of Arcjet Thrusters,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Beihang University, 2012

(Lastly Updated in September, 2022)