Investigation on Application of Closed Cavity Inductively Coupled Plasma in Inlet Stealth

Abstract

Abstract The design of inlet into S-shaped is a stealth method with limited effect. The ICP generated in closed quartz chamber is an effective solution to improve the stealth effect. In this paper, an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) generator with the size of 30cm×30cm×2cm which could be conformal with S-shaped inlet was designed, the discharge experiment was carried out to study the discharge configuration of air ICP and the distribution of the electron density in the core area of ICP under 100Pa and different discharge power was diagnosed with microwave interference method. On this basis, the three-dimensional electromagnetic model of inlet and the plasma generator were established and the finite-difference time-domain method was used to calculate the broad-band scattering parameter of the inlet with and without the ICP generator. The variation of radar cross section area (RCS) with the azimuth angle, electromagnetic wave frequency and discharge power of ICP was studied. The result indicated that the ICP generator could effectively improve the stealth effect of S-shaped inlet in the head direction.