Interlaboratory validation of a hanging pendulum thrust balance for electric propulsion testing
File(s)RSI20-AR-02207.pdf (2.28 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A hanging pendulum thrust balance has been developed by Imperial College London in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) to characterize a wide range of static fire electric propulsion and chemical micro-propulsion devices with thrust in the range of 1 mN to 1 N. The thrusters under investigation are mounted on a pendulum platform, which is suspended from the support structure using stainless steel flexures. The displacement of the platform is measured using an optical laser triangulation sensor. Thermal stability is ensured by a closed loop self-compensating heating system. The traceability and stability of the calibration are ensured using two separate calibration subsystems: a voice coil actuator and a servomotor pulley system. Two nearly identical thrust balances have been constructed, with one being tested in the Imperial Plasma Propulsion Laboratory and the other in the ESA Propulsion Laboratory. Both balances show a high degree of linearity in the range of 0.5 mN–100 mN. Both instruments have demonstrated a stable calibration over several days, with an estimated standard deviation on thrust measurements better than 0.27 mN for low thrust measurements. The same electric propulsion test article was used during both tests: a Quad Confinement Thruster (QCT) variant called QCT Phoenix. This thruster differed from previous QCT designs by having a newly optimized magnetic topology. The device produced thrust up to 2.21 ± 0.22 mN with a maximum specific impulse of 274 ± 41 s for an anode power range of 50 W–115 W.
Date Issued
2021-03-04
Date Acceptance
2021-02-07
Citation
Review of Scientific Instruments, 2021, 92 (3), pp.1-11
ISSN
0034-6748
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Start Page
1
End Page
11
Journal / Book Title
Review of Scientific Instruments
Volume
92
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Author(s). This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 034502 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0037100
Identifier
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0037100
Subjects
02 Physical Sciences
03 Chemical Sciences
09 Engineering
Applied Physics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-03-04