Khaustova А. Method for stationary plasma thruster outer and inner ceramic edges erosion rate diagnostics

Object - the process of erosion of the stationary plasma thruster discharge chamber insulators; goal - improvement of non-intrusive diagnostics method of the erosion wear degree of discharge chamber edges of stationary plasma thruster to determine separately the erosion of each insulators at different operation modes of thruster during test to find an operation mode that ensures the uniformity of edge wear and reduces the duration of the thruster tests; methods - the method of optical emission spectroscopy, direct methods of erosion measurements, the method of least squares, linear correlation analysis, statistical methods of measurements processing; results - the system of emission spectral registration is improved by means of collimator that allows to measure wear products emission spectrum from stationary plasma thruster discharge chamber outer and inner insulators that significantly simplify the search of its operation mode that provides uniformity of discharge chamber wear and increase its lifetime, improved method of non-intrusive diagnostics allows significantly to reduce time for the analysis of stationary plasma thruster discharge chamber edges degree of erosion wear, the existence of stationary plasma thruster operation modes with the uniform wear of discharge chamber edges is proved; novelty - the non-intrusive diagnostics method of the stationary plasma thruster discharge chamber edges degree of erosion wear is improved by means of separate measurements of erosion products emission spectrum from discharge chamber outer and inner ceramic insulators. It allows separate determination of each insulator erosion at different thruster operational regimes during it testing for the search of the regime that provides uniformity of edges wear and decrease of thruster test duration, the computational method of erosion rate determination by experimental data of stationary plasma thruster discharge chamber wear products emission spectra is improved that takes into account the dependences of the registered radiation value on the sizes of insulators wear areas, the receiver divergence angle and the distance between the radiation source and the receiver, that makes it possible to improve structural completeness of model for diagnostic of erosion wear degree discharge chamber edges; the degree of implementation - implemented into the educational process of National aerospace university named after N. Ye. Zhukovsky "КАІ", implemented into work of «Science Park "Radio Electronics and Informatics"»; field of application - aerospace.