Electrical Model and Electrical Temperature-Dependent Model for Electrospray Thrusters

This article presents two equivalent electrical models of electrospray thrusters verified with experimental data. The first model presented in this article aims to improve the electrospray thruster representation in HV-dc/dc converter's steady-state and closed feedback-loop response simulations since it is one of the most critical subsystems of an electrospray propulsion system. The proposed model, adapted from cold cathode fluorescents lamps (CCFLs) models, is composed of basic electrical elements (resistors, capacitors, and diodes), and it is implemented in SIMULINK/MATLAB. The model parameters are extracted from experimental data, and it is possible to export them to any electrical simulation tool. The second model incorporates temperature dependencies based on electrospray physics to predict the thruster's behavior within an experimental data set. The absolute error between the experimental and simulated data is less than two microamps for the nontemperature-dependent model and two and five-tenths microamps for the temperature-dependent model in the thruster's operating range. Besides, the relative error is less than 4% for the nontemperature-dependent model and less than 8% in the thruster's operating range for the temperature-dependent model. A comparison with previous models is quantified showing that the models presented in this article are a better approximation, validating the proposed models.