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Open AccessArticle

Experimental Investigation on Plume Characteristics of PTFE-Filled Carbon, Graphite, Graphene for Laser-Assisted Pulsed Plasma Thruster

by Yuqi Li, Yang Ou, Jianjun Wu and Yu Zhang

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(16), 9283; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13169283 - 16 Aug 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1548

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into the plume characteristics of composite propellants fabricated by polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) filled with different carbon additives (nano-carbon powder, graphite, and graphene) under laser irradiation in a vacuum environment. The dynamic plumes generated by the laser ablation of different modified propellant samples were captured using a high-speed camera, and the feature parameters of the plumes were extracted by image processing. The results indicated that doping carbon particles in PTFE enhanced the quality of the plasma plumes. The plume area increased up to a certain value and then stabilized, while end of plume clusters remained for a short time. Further analysis revealed that the propellant sample doped with graphene exhibited the maximum plume length and expansion rate, whereas the propellant sample doped with nano-carbon demonstrated the largest plume area. Moreover, a higher graphene doping ratio promoted greater plume length, expansion speed, and plume area. However, when the doping ratio exceeded 3%, the gain of the plume parameters gradually became saturated, and the optimal doping ratio appeared to be 5%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Aerospace Science and Engineering)

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24 pages, 13378 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Study on the Plasma Plume Expansion Dynamics of Nanosecond Laser Ablating Al/PTFE

by Sheng Tan, Moge Wang, Jianjun Wu, Yu Zhang and Jian Li

Energies 2020, 13(13), 3321; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13133321 - 29 Jun 2020

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4253

Abstract

To study the plasma plume expansion dynamics of nanosecond laser ablating Al/PTFE, the Al/PTFE propellant was prepared by a molding sintering method and the rapid expansion process of the plasma plume was photographed using fast photography technology. The effects of the proportion of Al, laser energy and ambient pressure on plasma plume expansion dynamics are analyzed. The results show that the plume expansion process of laser ablating Al/PTFE plasma can be divided into three stages and this phenomenon has not been reported in the literature. The Al powder doped in PTFE will block part of the laser transmission into the propellant, thus reducing the laser absorption depth of the propellant. In the case of short pulse laser ablation, the reaction rate between Al and PTFE is optimal when the reductant is slightly higher than the oxidant. As the laser energy increases, the light intensity of the plasma becomes stronger, the plasma size becomes larger and the existence time of plasma becomes longer. In the first stage plume, the plume expands freely at the ambient pressure of 0.005 Pa and the plume expansion distance is linearly related to time, while the shock wave formed at the interface between the plume front and the ambient gas at the ambient pressure of 5 Pa and the expansion can be described by S-T theory. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section D1: Advanced Energy Materials)

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