Thermionic Converters Operating in the Ignited Mode. Part I: Theoretical Output-Current Characteristics

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Abstract
Output current characteristics of thermionic converters are derived without reference to specific elastic and inelastic collision mechanisms, and are expressed in terms of arbitrary plasma electron density and temperature profiles. The general expression for the characteristics indicates that for a given current the output voltage is composed of two parts: (a) a reference output voltage which depends only upon the output current and electrode properties and contains implicitly the effect of electron‐electron collisions; and (b) a plasma voltage loss which depends only upon certain average properties of the interelectrode plasma. It is shown that conceptually different models for the interelectrode plasma can lead to similar estimates for the plasma voltage loss and to agreement with experimental output current characteristics. For this reason, it is concluded that the successful correlation of experimental output current‐voltage data is necessary but not sufficient to test the validity of a given model for the interelectrode plasma.

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