• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Michigan Aerospace Engineering
  • News & Events
  • Alumni & Friends
  • Contact Us
  • About
    • Message from the Chair
    • Mission
    • History
    • Facts & Figures
    • FXB Building
    • Department Publications
    • Visit Us
    • Contact Us
    • Faculty Search
  • Culture
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Resources
    • Outreach & Partnerships
    • Student Life
    • Student Teams & Projects
    • Student Organizations
  • Research
    • Research Areas
      • Aerodynamics & Propulsion
      • Autonomous Systems & Control
      • Computation
      • Space Systems
      • Structures & Materials
      • Sustainable Aviation
    • Shared Facilities
    • Multidisciplinary Centers
    • Research Opportunities for Students
      • Graduate Research
      • Undergraduate Research
  • Undergraduate
    • Program Overview
    • Admissions
    • Degree Requirements
    • Scholarships
    • Study Abroad
    • Co-ops & Internships
    • Current Undergraduate Students
      • Declaring
      • Advising
      • Sequential Undergraduate/Graduate Studies (SUGS) Program
      • Undergrad Courses
      • Teaching Labs
      • Undergrad Awards
  • Graduate
    • Master of Science in Engineering
    • Master of Engineering
    • Doctor of Philosophy
    • Admission Guidelines & Planning
    • Application Process
    • Funding
    • Current Graduate Students
      • Grad Courses
      • Aero 590 Projects
      • Grad Awards
  • People
    • Faculty
      • Core Faculty
      • Research Faculty
      • Adjunct Faculty
      • Emeritus Faculty
      • Affiliated Faculty
    • Staff
    • News & Events
    • Alumni & Friends
    • Contact Us

Aerospace Engineering Assistant Professor Benjamin Jorns is awarded AFOSR Young Investigator Program award for electric thruster research

Congratulations to Professor Jorns, awardee of the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award

Written by: Michigan Aerospace Engineering

November 7, 2018

Congratulations to Aerospace Engineering Assistant Professor Benjamin Jorns, recipient of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program (YIP) award. The award-winning proposal, “Predictive Modeling for Complex Plasma Systems with Poorly Understood Physics” describes the need for additional research on electric thruster technologies such as Hall thrusters and Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) thrusters. 

Benjamin Jorns, Professor of Aerospace Engineering

As a form of propulsion with moderate specific impulse, Hall thrusters have been historically used for in-orbit satellite orientation adjustment and for propulsion of robotic space vehicles. FRC thrusters are a much less developed technology but could have unprecedentedly high performance and power density compared to state-of-the-art electric thrusters.

Professor Jorns explains that although Hall thrusters, which he studies as co-Director of the UM Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL), are “a mature technology with quite a bit of flight heritage, there are no predictive models for either of these [Hall or FRC] thrusters. You cannot program a new prototype geometry into CAD or a commercial code, run it, and be confident that it will predict performance. This is because there are aspects of the fundamental physical processes in these devices that we do not understand sufficiently to model.” Specifically, Hall thruster researchers do not have a strong understanding of how electrons move in the plasma.  For FRC thrusters, a type of plasma “rail gun,” there are many open and fundamental questions about how the propellant can be efficiently accelerated.

The X3 Hall thruster operating at 30 kW in the PEPL Large Vacuum Test Facility.
Schematic (left) of PEPL’s Experimental Coaxial Field Reversed Configuration Thruster (XOCOT) system and photograph (right) of the XOCOT annular chamber, test setup, and current transmission cables.
PEPL’s Large Vacuum Test Facility (LVTF).

As a YIP awardee, Professor Jorns will receive a $450,000 research grant to be used over a three-year period. With this funding, he and his team will be developing and modeling technologies for United States Air Force (USAF) applications. Professor Jorns’ goal for Hall thrusters is to “finish this work with algorithms that can be incorporated into existing Hall thruster codes and that actually demonstrate a predictive capability” for “mode transitions, performance, and dynamical response.” For FRC thrusters, on the other hand, there is much more room for development than the more mature Hall thruster technology. Facing the challenge of building and optimizing an operational FRC thruster, Professor Jorns explains, “I would be very happy if [at the end of the contract] we actually had a working thruster with 1) new insight into how they work and 2) a demonstration of optimized performance.”

As a widely-renowned laboratory for plasmadynamics research, PEPL is undertaking a series of research efforts for a variety of applications. The lab is home to an extensive family of five- to six-kilowatt Hall thrusters, a series of micropopulsion concepts,  and a 100-kilowatt class, three-channel thruster design dubbed the X3.


MEDIA CONTACT

Michigan Aerospace logo

Michigan Aerospace Engineering

Communications Team

ae-social@umich.edu

Explore: Aerospace Engineering Awards Campus & Community Faculty Benjamin Jorns Honors and Awards

Footer

Michigan Engineering
  • News & Events
  • Giving
  • COVID-19 Updates
  • Contact Us
  • U-M Engineering Home
  • Strategic Vision
  • Graduate and Professional
  • Undergraduate
  • U-M Engineering Research News

© 2022 The Regents of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Privacy Policy | Non-Discrimination Policy | Campus Safety

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube