Experiment Validation of a Novel Fast Pulsed Gas Valve for Inductive Pulsed Plasma Thruster

A prototype inductive pulsed plasma thruster (IPPT) has been developed in the National University of Defense Technology. In order to support the thruster experimental research, a novel fast pulsed gas valve based on eddy current repulsion mechanism is designed and tested in this paper. A new and important design feature is the use of a conical diaphragm as the action part, which greatly contributes to the virtue of simplicity for adopting the resultant force of the diaphragm deformation as the closing force. Experiments are performed over a range of capacitor charge voltages and working gas pressures, and the results reveal that the delay before the valve action is less than 35 μs. The throughput of the valve, which has an upper limit of 2.5 mg argon with a fixed gas pressure of 100 kPa, can be easily regulated by adjusting the charge voltage and the gas pressure. The valve will become a useful tool to facilitate the IPPT research.