Numerical simulation of a water propellant pulsed plasma thruster

Water, an alternative propellant, was considered to be a key point to improve the per for mance of pulsed plasma thruster(PPT). To date, the effectiveness of PPT using water propellant had been testified by experimental methods. First of all, combined with the available Teflon PPT numerical simulation, computational model was set up for water propellant PPT. Then a comparison was made with the experimental results from the University of Tokyo. It showed that big differences were existed be twee n the experimental results and the simulation results. The primary reason was that the operation process was simulated as first order completely ionization which was an ideal situation. Finally several cases were calculated to discover that every initial energy correspondingly had a sufficient ablation mass. And different supplied mass couldmeet different tasks.