Effect of permanent magnet configuration on discharge characteristics in cylindrical Hall thrusters

Highlights: • The cylindrical Hall thruster with permanent magnet is studied. • The permanent magnet configuration has a significant influence on the thruster performance. • This study gives a good reference of cylindrical Hall thruster design. -- Abstract: Magnetic field design is important in cylindrical Hall thrusters and using permanent magnets to generate magnetic field is very promising in the future. In two typical permanent magnet configurations (i.e., ring and cylindrical configurations) of cylindrical Hall thrusters, discharge characteristics are compared in this paper through the experiments and simulations. The study shows that the cylindrical configuration can bring about higher thruster performance in the same working condition. The reason is that the potential drop of the cylindrical configuration is mainly concentrated in the channel, which is beneficial for the electrons to obtain energy to promote the ionization of the propellant. However, the voltage regulation range of the cylindrical configuration is lower because the anode is more easily overheated.