Development of a two-dimensional dual pendulum thrust stand for Hall thrusters.
A two-dimensional dual pendulum thrust stand was developed to measure thrust vectors [axial and horizontal (transverse) direction thrusts] of a Hall thruster. A thruster with a steering mechanism is mounted on the inner pendulum, and thrust is measured from the displacement between inner and outer pendulums, by which a thermal drift effect is canceled out. Two crossover knife-edges support each pendulum arm: one is set on the other at a right angle. They enable the pendulums to swing in two directions. Thrust calibration using a pulley and weight system showed that the measurement errors were less than 0.25 mN (1.4%) in the main thrust direction and 0.09 mN (1.4%) in its transverse direction. The thrust angle of the thrust vector was measured with the stand using the thruster. Consequently, a vector deviation from the main thrust direction of +/-2.3 degrees was measured with the error of +/-0.2 degrees under the typical operating conditions for the thruster.
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.
N
N
Nagao
S
S
Yokota
K
K
Komurasaki
Y
Y
Arakawa