Induction Thermal Thrusters

Another option for electrothermal thrusters is to use induction heating. Induction heating occurs when a high frequency alternating current is passed through a coil. Because of this, the induced magnetic field in the surroundings is swinging rapidly, stirring polar particles (particles that have a distinct plus and minus pole even if they’re electrically neutral overall) in the field. This can result even in ripping molecules apart (dissociation) and knocking electrons out of their orbitals (ionization). The charged remnants are ions and electrons, forming a plasma. Because of this, the device is called an “inductive plasma generator” or IPG. Plasma are even more susceptible to this high frequency heating. In purely thermal IPG based thrusters, Laval nozzles are used for expansion, once more, but magnetic nozzles, as explained later, can augment the performance on top of what a physical nozzle can provide. This principle is something that we’ve already seen a lot in this blog (both CFEET and NTREES operate through induction heating), and is used in one concept for bimodal nuclear thermal-electric propulsion, in the Nuclear Thermo-Electric Rocket (NTER) concept by Dr. Dujarric at ESA. This principle is also used in several different sort of electric thrusters, such as the Pulsed Induction Thruster (PIT); this is not a thermal thruster, though, so we’ll look more at it later.

This is a higher-powered system if you want significant thrust, due to the current required for the induction heater; so it’s not one that is commonly in use for smaller satellites like most of these systems. One other limitation noted by the NTER team is that supersonic induction is not an area that has been studied, and in most cases heating supersonic gasses don’t actually make them travel faster (called frozen energy), so during heating it’s necessary to make sure the propellant velocity remains subsonic.

IPG is also one of the foci of research at the Institute of Space Systems of the University of Stuttgart, studying both space and terrestrial applications, grouped in figure ## below, demonstrating the versatility of the concept: Generating a plasma without contact, the propellant cannot damage e.g. electrodes. This allows a near arbitrary selection of gasses as propellant, and therefore viable in-situ resource utilization concepts. Even space station wastes could be fed to such a thruster. Eventually, this prompted research on IPG based waste treatment for terrestrial communities. At the Institute of Space Systems, IPG also serve for the emulation of planetary atmospheres in re-entry experimentation in plasma wind tunnels.

IPG tech tree
Applications for inductive plasma generators investigated at the Insitute of Space Systems USTUTT and affiliations. Gabrielli 2018

Which type of heating is used is generally a function of the frequency of energy used to cause the oscillations, and therefore the heat. Induction heating, as we’ve discussed before in context of testing NTR fuel elements, usually occurs between 100 and 500 kHz. Radio Frequency heating occurs between 5 and 50 MHz. Finally, microwave heating occurs above 100 MHZ, although GHz operational ranges are common for many applications, like domestic microwaves which are found in most kitchens.

RF Electrothermal Thruster

RF thrusters operate via dielectric heating, where a material that has magnetic poles is oscillated rapidly in an electromagnetic field by a beam of radio waves, or more properly the molecules flip orientation relative to the field as the radio waves pass across them, causing heat to transfer to adjacent molecules. One side effect of using RF for heating is that these have very long wavelengths, meaning that the object being heated (in this case the propellant) can be heated more evenly throughout the entire mass of propellant than is typically possible in a microwave heating device.

While this is definitely a viable way to heat a propellant, this mechanism is more commonly used in ionization chambers, where the oscillating orientation of the dielectric molecules causes electrons of adjacent molecules to be stripped off, ionizing the propellant. This ionized propellant is then often accelerated using either MPD or electrostatic forces. We’ll look at that later, though, it’s just a good example of the way that many different components of these thrusters are used in different ways depending on the configuration and type of the thrusters in question.

Microwave Thermal Thrusters

 

MeT Clemens 2008
Microwave Electrothermal Thruster Diagram, Clemens 2008

Finally, we come to the last major type of electrothermal thruster: the microwave frequency thruster. This is not the Em-drive (nor will that concept be covered in this post)! Rather, it’s more akin to the microwave in your home: either radio frequencies or microwaves are used to convert the propellant, often Teflon (Polyfluorotriethylene, PFTE), into a plasma, which causes it to expand and accelerate out of a nozzle. This is most commonly done with microwaves rather than the longer wavelength radio frequencies due to a number of practical reasons.

 

Microwave thermal thrusters have been demonstrated with a very wide range of propellants, from H2 and N2 to Kr, Ar, Xe, PTFE, and others, at a wide variety of power levels. Due to the different power levels and propellant masses, specific impulse and thrust vary wildly. However, hydrogen-based thruster concepts have been demonstrated to have a specific impulse of approximately 1000 s with 54 kN of thrust.

An interesting option for this type of thruster is to not have your power supply on-board your spacecraft, and instead have a beam of microwaves hit a rectifier, or microwave antenna, which is then directed into the propellant. This has a major advantage of not having to have your power supply, electric conversion system, and microwave emitters weighing down your spacecraft. The beam will diverge over time, growing wider and requiring larger and larger collectors, but this may still end up being a major mass savings for quite a few different applications. Prof. Komurasaki at University of Tokyo is a major contributor to research in this concept, but this isn’t going to be something that we’re going to delve too deeply into in this post.

Sources

Coaxial Microwave Electrothermal Thruster Performance in Hydrogen, Richardson et al, Michigan State 1968 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19950005171.pdf

Microwave Electrothermal Thruster webpage, Princeton http://alfven.princeton.edu/research/past/met

The Microwave Thermal Thruster Concept, Parkin et al, CalTech https://authors.library.caltech.edu/3304/1/PARaipcp04b.pdf

Microwave Electro-thermal Thruster patent, Rayethon 1999 https://patents.google.com/patent/US5956938

Fourth Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion, ed. Komurasaki and Yabe, 2005 https://sciencedocbox.com/Physics/70705799-Beamed-energy-propulsion.html

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