Reduction in the Instability of Nonequilibrium Plasma Near the Inlet of a Disk MHD Generator

Abstract

Effects of plasma structure on the performance of closed cycle disk MHD generator under high enthalpy extraction condition have been examined with r-θ two dimensional numerical simulation based on two temperature model MHD equation. It is found that higher load resistance and seed fraction as compared to the design value decrease the nonuniformity of plasma structure and improve the generator performance under the inlet condition of the low electron temperature. It is also shown that slight pre-ionization at the inlet of MHD channel is effective for the improvement of the performance of generator.