The flow in a low-powered arc gas heater com- bined with a supersonic nozzle of throat diameter less than 1 mm is quite complicated and difficult to describe in quan- titative detail. Experiments on arc-heated supersonic jet thrusters of monatomic gases argon and helium have been carried out and their performance measured. The flow charac- teristics are analyzed with the help of numerical simulation. Results show that the viscous effect is the most important factor causing the large difference between ideal and real performance. A large outer section of the exit flow is slow- moving. This is especially pronounced in helium, where 70 % of the exit area of the nozzle might be in subsonic flow. Fric- tion forces can be much larger than the net thrust, reaching several times higher in helium, resulting in very low efficien- cies. Other factors causing the differences between ideal and real flow include： complex flow in the throat region, electric arc extending to the nozzle expansion section, heat transfer to the inlet gas and from the hot plasma, and environmen- tal pressure in the vacuum chamber. It is recognized that the ordinary concepts of supersonic nozzle flow must be greatly modified when dealing with such complicated situations. The general concepts presented in this paper could be helpful in guiding the design and operation of this equipment.
Gasdynamic flow features in an electrothermal arcjet thruster with a mixture of 1：2 nitrogen/hydrogen as the working gas have been studied by a two-temperature numerical simulation.Seven species and 17 kinetic processes are included in the chemical kinetic model used to represent dissociation, ionization, and the corresponding recombination reactions in this nitrogen/hydrogen mixture system. Based on the gas flow characteristics inside the arcjet nozzle,a new method is introduced to define the edge of the cold boundary layer, which is more convenient to analyze the evolution and development of plasma flow in an arcjet thruster. The results show that the arcjet thruster performance is determined largely by the exchange of energy and momentum between the low-density, high-temperature arc region and the high-density, coolflow region near the nozzle wall. A significant thermal nonequilibrium is found in the cold boundary layer in the expansion portion of the nozzle. The important chemical kinetic processes determining the distribution of hydrogen and nitrogen species in different flow regions are presented. It has been shown that the reaction rate of hydrogen species ionization impacted by electrons is much higher than that of nitrogen species ionization in the center of the constrictor of the arcjet thruster. This indicates that hydrogen species is very important in the conversion of applied electric energy into thermal energy in the constrictor region of the arcjet thruster.
