Generation Characteristics of Xenon-Driven High Temperature Inert Gas Plasma Disk-Shaped MHD Generator

Abstract

MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) electrical power generation experiments have been conducted with a seed-free high temperature inert gas plasma in a disk-shaped Hall-type generator driven by a single-pulsed shock tunnel. Xenon is used as a working gas to archive a high performance at a low inlet total temperature, where the total gas temperature is varied in the range of 4600-10000K at the generator inlet. An enthalpy extraction ratio of 4.8% is obtained at the inlet total temperature of 7000K, and this value is much higher than that for argon at the same inlet total temperature. The unstable and non-uniform plasma attributed to ionization instability is observed at a high magnetic flux density and a high load resistance.