Study on Performance of Micro Xenon Gas Flow Control Module Based on LTCC Porous Labyrinth Restrictor

The micro xenon gas flow control module is mainly applied to the feed system of hundred-watt Hall electric propulsion. Two-channel microflow control is realized via structural design to meet the flow requirements of the anode and cathode of the Hall thruster. The LTCC porous labyrinth micro-restrictor delivers remarkable pressure reduction and throttling performance, as well as high microflow control precision. It serves as a key component of the propellant feed unit for low-power electric propulsion systems. Meanwhile, it features light weight and favorable mass production capacity. Nevertheless, due to the complex flow channel structure of the LTCC restrictor, its throttling mechanism remains unclear, and its flow characteristics are not well defined. In this paper, numerical simulations combined with experimental verifications are adopted to investigate the flow characteristics of the micro xenon flow control module. The relationships between the total product flow rate and the upstream/downstream branch flow rates under different operating pressures are explored, laying a foundation for further popularization and engineering application of the module. The measured anode-to-cathode flow ratio decreased from 11.28 to 8.55 over the tested inlet-pressure range of 0.04–0.11 MPa. For the two tested modules, the relative deviations between the measured and theoretical flow ratios were 13.8% and approximately 3.5%, respectively.