Wave-Driven Plasmas for Spacecraft Propulsion
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The Department of Aerospace Engineering seeks to instruct the design, analysis, testing, and operation of vehicles which operate in air, water, or space, including studies of aerodynamics, structure mechanics, propulsion, and the like.
History
The Department of Aerospace Engineering was organized as the Department of Aeronautical Engineering in 1942. Its name was changed to the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1961. In 1990, the department absorbed the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and became the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. In 2003 the name was changed back to the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Dates of Existence
1942-present
Historical Names
- Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (1990-2003)
Related Units
- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (merged with, 1990)
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The Honors project is potentially the most valuable component of an Honors education. Typically Honors students choose to do their projects in their area of study, but some will pick a topic of interest unrelated to their major.
The Honors Program requires that the project be presented at a poster presentation event. Poster presentations are held each semester. Most students present during their senior year, but may do so earlier if their honors project has been completed.
This site presents project descriptions and selected posters for Honors projects completed since the Fall 2015 semester.
Department
Abstract
Electric propulsion offers efficiency on the order of magnitude higher than conventional chemical propulsion for spacecraft. Electrodeless systems have higher operational lifetimes than contemporary systems, but have yet to be developed fully. Based on research conducted at Princeton University, the generalized relations for the scaling of thrust and efficiency are derived for a cylindrical wave-driven thruster, and the longitudinal, electrostatic wave is shown as an ideal candidate for driving a such a thruster. The “magnetosonic” wave is determined to be capable of carrying substantial momentum while remaining linear, which prevents potential coupling losses from the wave-launching antenna driver. In addition to scale-efficiency relation modeling, a finite-element simulation of transient antenna-plasma coupling for a range of frequencies in the kHz domain is completed. It is shown that for a linear wave-launching antenna, efficiency increases with current, therefore this system has the potential to operate in a range of input powers currently left vacant by contemporary propulsion technology.