Simulation And Experimental Study Of Near-space Electro-hydrodynamic Propulsion Technology

Near Spacecraft is the main tool for exploiting and utilizing resources in the near space.Due to the complexity of the near space environment,high requirements are put forward for the propulsion system,which restrict the development of the near space vehicle.According to the urgent and priority requirement of military development in China and considering the pressure conditions in the near space,the application of electro-hydrodynamic propulsion technology in the near space is proposed and studied,and its basic performance is studied through theoretical analysis and experimental test.Firstly,the basic characteristics of the near space environment are analyzed,including atmospheric density,temperature,atmospheric pressure,wind field and atmospheric composition and distribution.Based on the near space environment and ionic wind theory of corona discharge,the simulation model of ionic wind electric thruster is constructed by finite element simulation software.The effects of air pressure,wind speed,electrode size and device configuration on the performance of the thruster are studied.The results show that the thruster thrust increases with driving voltage,electrode spacing,reducing gas pressure and reducing discharge electrode radius;under the influence of wind speed,the ion diffusion zone will be compressed,which will lead to a decrease in thrust.When the wind speed reaches 300 m/s,the thrust value is 10%-15% at the wind speed is 0 m/s;the forward diffusion ion can be reduced by applying pre-bias voltage,and the thrust and discharge radius can be increased.The power ratio,and the closer the forward bias voltage is to the anode,the more obvious the current suppression effect is,and the thrust also decreases significantly at this time.Secondly,the vacuum experimental tank system is used to carry out the low pressure experiment of ionic wind electric propulsion technology.The simulation results are compared with the experimental results.The results show that the simulation result are in good agreement with the experimental result under the same conditions,which verifies the accuracy of the simulation model.In addition,a comparative experiment of variable parameters under low pressure is carried out,and power consumption data are obtained by measuring discharge parameters.The effects of design parameters on the current and power consumption of the prototype are discussed.The influence mechanism of the circuit model on the current and power consumption of the experimental prototype is also analyzed.Finally,the design of electrodynamic patch and ionic wind electric propulsion device is proposed for the current hydrodynamic propulsion technology.Combined with the horizontal wind field model,the application approach and effect of the current hydrodynamic propulsion technology on stratospheric airship are studied.The results show that,compared with the electrodynamic patch,the ionic wind propulsion device has a higher power ratio of 80 mN/kW.Under the horizontal wind field model,the moving range of the ionic wind propulsion airship is much smaller than that of airship without thust even under the control method of orienting toward the origin,which can meet the communication needs.It shows that the ionic wind propulsion technology,has an important application potential in the near space.