Quantitative Analysis of Convective Flow of Nitrogen Gas and Air under Magnetic Field Gradient

Abstract

Recently, magnetic field gradients have been found to induce gas flow and promote combustion in diffusion flames. For example, when N₂ gas stream was injected into air toward a weaker magnetic field, it was accelerated and behaved like a jet stream. This phenomenon was explained qualitatively by a magnetic attractive force acting on paramagnetic oxygen gas. In this study, such a magnetically induced jet stream of N₂ gas was quantitatively analyzed. First, the magnetic body force acting on the gas flow and the governing equation of magnetic gas dynamics are presented. Using them, a numerical simulation was carried out for N₂-Air convective flow under a magnetic field gradient. Calculated results show that the jet flow is accelerated to 80 cm/sec when the initial N₂ gas velocity is 3.9 cm/sec and maximum magnetic induction is 1.5 T. Furthermore, calculation shows the existence of a convective air flow around the N₂ jet flow. The results of the present study show good agreement with the experimental results.