MACH2 simulations of an ablative pulsed plasma thruster

Summary form only given, as follows. MACH2 is a general purpose MHD code developed and maintained at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Phillips Site. It has been successfully used in the past to simulate a wide range of pulsed plasma devices. We have adopted this code to simulate several different electric thrusters, as well as cableguns that are used in plasma opening switches, in an attempt to better understand the complicated plasma flow in these devices. The code normally uses tabular thermodynamic data and transport properties from the SESAME tables developed at Los Alamos National. Laboratory. These tables are sparse in the density and temperature range of interest for the Teflon material commonly used for ablative thrusters and for cableguns. We have calculated new tables for Teflon and for polyethylene for use in MACH2 simulations. Simulations have been run for a research thruster at UTSI and a pulsed plasma thruster under development at the University of Illinois. Simulations have also been run for the cablegun used for the DECADE opening switch. Detailed predictions of the plasma flow and electromagnetic fields have been obtained for these devices and simulation results will be compared with experimental measurements where available.