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Transport Coefficients of Two-temperature Lithium Plasma for Space Propulsion Applications

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Abstract

Lithium has been proposed as an attractive metal propellant for advanced electric propulsion. In our current work, transport coefficients including the viscosity, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity of lithium plasma under both the equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions are calculated based on a two-temperature model. The collision integrals used in calculating the transport coefficients are significantly more accurate than values used in previous theoretical studies, resulting in more reliable values of the transport coefficients. Results are computed for different degrees of thermal non-equilibrium, i.e. the ratio of electron to heavy particle temperatures, from 1 to 15, with the electron temperature ranging from 300 to 60,000 K in a wide pressure range from 0.0001 to 100 atm. We compare our calculated results with existing published results and discrepancies are found and explained.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11675040), Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 201602175), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. DUT15ZD (G) 01).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Guangqing Xia, Yajie Han, Qiuyun Wu, Liuwei Chen & Niandong Zhou

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  1. Guangqing Xia
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Correspondence to Guangqing Xia.

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Xia, G., Han, Y., Wu, Q. et al. Transport Coefficients of Two-temperature Lithium Plasma for Space Propulsion Applications. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 37, 1505–1522 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11090-017-9837-3

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