Abstract
Development of large spacecraft propulsion units involves the creation of high-temperature radiation-resistant systems for current conversion based on thermionic devices of plasma electric power engineering, such as grid-controlled switches and high-voltage plasma thermionic diodes (HVPTD). The current conversion system (CCS) is required to match the electrical parameters of a thermionic conversion power reactor (with an output voltage of 120–150 V) with the parameters of the electric jet engine (having a working voltage of hundreds or thousands of volts). This brings about an urgent issue of calculating the ignition voltage for the back-arc discharge in the interelectrode gap (IEG) of HVPTDs. A semiempirical correlation is proposed for predicting the back-arc discharge ignition voltage as a function of the cesium vapor pressure in IEG and the anode temperature. It can be used by designers of thermionic plasma power engineering devices.
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Original Russian Text © E.V. Onufrieva, V.V. Onufriev, Yu.M. Grishin, N.I. Sidnyaev, V.V. Sinyavsky, A.B. Ivashkin, 2018, published in Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Energetika.
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Onufrieva, E.V., Onufriev, V.V., Grishin, Y.M. et al. On Calculation of the Ignition Voltage for a Back-Arc Discharge in a High-Voltage Thermionic Diode. Therm. Eng. 65, 1019–1023 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0040601518130098
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0040601518130098