2026-09-20T07:22:43Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/100997 2023-07-11 col_2142_5131 col_2142_14800 com_2142_5130 com_2142_14799 com_2142_234

Miley, George H. Miley, George H. Burton, Rodney L. Curreli, Davide Levin, Deborah Ruzic, David N. Ahern, Drew 2018-09-04T20:27:13Z 2018-09-04T20:27:13Z 2018-04-17 2018-05 This thesis discusses the Helicon Injected Inertial Plasma Electrostatic Rocket (HIIPER), a space propulsion concept consisting of a helicon source for plasma generation and an ion extraction method using a nested pair of inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) grids that are asymmetrically designed. In this study, which used argon as a propellant, a retarding potential analyzer (RPA) was used to measure the exhaust of HIIPER, and results showed the presence of electrons and ions, with ion energies equal to the helicon bias voltage and electron energies on the order of the inner IEC grid voltage. Electron energy distributions were also generated. Quasineutral exhaust conditions were measured to occur with the inner IEC grid between 2 and 3 kV (negative). Tests on the IEC grid configuration were also performed, which indicated that electrons preferentially exited the asymmetry of the inner IEC grid. Langmuir probe measurements showed that some ion losses occurred due to the experimental setup. These losses were reflected in thrust measurements at the exhaust of only a few micronewtons. However, with improvements to the facilities and experimental setup, improvements in thruster efficiency would likely be obtained. While additional analysis would be required to fully characterize HIIPER, the results thus far show promising quasineutral behavior and demonstrate an innovative cathode design for electric propulsion applications. Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2018-08-31 without embargo terms The student, Drew Ahern, accepted the attached license on 2018-04-16 at 20:15. The student, Drew Ahern, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2018-04-16 at 20:21. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2018-04-17 at 09:47. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12294 on 2018-08-31 at 17:13:13 Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T20:27:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 AHERN-DISSERTATION-2018.pdf: 5701136 bytes, checksum: af9f14a5897804ded67f1320e4372b92 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4207 bytes, checksum: 2046b0d800522016b11451189ecc1add (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-17 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2142/100997 en Copyright 2018 Drew Ahern electric propulsion, inertial electrostatic confinement Investigation of a space propulsion concept using inertial electrostatic confinement text text Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.