Fundamental Performance of Disk-shaped Magnetohydrodynamics Accelerator

Abstract

This paper investigates the acceleration performance of a disk-shaped magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) accelerator. Quasi-1-dimensional (Q1D) numerical simulation employing the MacCormack scheme was developed. For the longer channel length of 0.9 m, thermal loss was estimated at over 60% and effective acceleration could not be achieved owing to large heat loss and large friction loss. For shorter channel lengths, thermal loss can be reduced below 20% owing to the smaller heat and the friction losses. However, with too short a channel length, accelerator performance was decreased by the MHD compression due to excessive Faraday current density. The effect of ratio of cross sectional area on performance was also studied. For a larger area ratio, the gas can be accelerated smoothly throughout the MHD channel. However, for the excessive expansion case of a sevenfold channel, gas velocity near the exit decreased due to transition to a “generator mode”. For the best acceleration performance, the design channel length should be as short as possible preventing compression at the channel inlet. The area ratio should be large enough to prevent the compression but not too large, to prevent transition to a “generator mode”.