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Facility Description

The High-Power Electric Propulsion Laboratory (HPEPL) is centered around the Vacuum Test Facility (VTF).  The Vacuum Test Facility is 7 meters long and 4 meters in diameter.  This facility is designed to test high-power electric propulsion devices.  It is the largest diffusion-pumped vacuum facility at any University in the nation.  The chamber is evacuated by two 3800 CFM blowers and two 495 CFM rotary-vane pumps to moderate vacuum (30-100 mTorr).  To reach high-vacuum (10-7 Torr), the chamber employs six NRC/Varian HS48-95,000 fractionating diffusion pumps, with a combined pumping speed of 600,000 l/s on air, 840,000 l/s on hydrogen, and 155,000 l/s on xenon.  Two internal linear tables and one rotary table are robust enough to investigate plume and discharge chamber characteristics in devices of up to 100 kg.  The thrust stand is a duplicate of the proven null-type inverted-pendulum thrust stand used to test high-power Hall thrusters (NASA-457M) at the NASA Glenn Research Center.  The facility can be configured to accommodate a wide variety of vacuum experiments.

One of the benefits of performing thruster tests at HPEPL is the vacuum facility.  There is great interest in operating high-power thrusters on hydrogen and other light gases.  Diffusion pumps are the best candidate for pumping large mass flow rates of light gases.  The VTF has one the highest pumping speeds of any diffusion-pumped facility in the nation.  Thus, the use of the VTF is critical if the nation is going to evaluate high-power light-gas thruster operation in a high-capacity vacuum facility in the near future.

 

Quick Facts:

  • 14-ft diameter by 22-ft long

  • Base Pressure:  10-7 Torr

  • Pumpdown Time (Atmospheric pressure to 10-6 Torr):  2 hours

  • Personnel entry door measuring 5-ft by 6-ft

  • Chamber penetrations for power, data acquisition, and high-pressure liquids and gases

  • 1-kW Recirculating Chiller

  • Six 48-in diameter, Polycold-baffled, electrically heated, oil diffusion pumps (pumping speed – 600,000 l/s nitrogen)

  • Chamber floor designed for a load of 2 tons

  • Large experiment assembly area

  • 30-ton capacity overhead crane

  • Cooling tower water to dissipate waste heat produced by Polycold compressors and vacuum pumps

 

  
     
   

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