Effects of stagnation gas pressures and impurities on performances of disk MHD generator with Ar/Cs

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:254628

Yamasaki, H; Tsuji, K; Yamashita, A ^[1]

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1. Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan); and others

Effects of stagnation gas pressures and nitrogen addition on nonequilibrium plasma in a disk MHD generator were investigated experimentally. High enthalpy extractions up to 24-26% were obtained at each stagnation gas pressures by adjusting seed fractions and load resistances. The high enthalpy extractions were achieved without an appearance of shock waves and a strong nonuniformity of plasma. At the same time, the maximum power output of 570 kW was obtained at the highest stagnation gas pressure, and it corresponds to a power density of 98 MW/m{sup 3}. It is also found that a permissible level of nitrogen in cesium seeded argon is 5000 ppm under present experimental conditions and that an addition of nitrogen enhances a spatial non-uniformity of nonequilibrium plasma and extends an ionization relaxation region downstream. Furthermore, a future direction of power generation experiments is described. Analytical studies on adiabatic efficiencies have shown that an area ratio (=exit/inlet) of the disk MHD generator is essential to achieve high adiabatic efficiencies.

• OSTI ID: 254628
• Report Number(s): CONF-950697--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
ARGON
CESIUM
DISK MHD GENERATORS
ENTHALPY
HEAT LOSSES
IMPURITIES
NON-EQUILIBRIUM PLASMA
PERFORMANCE
SHOCK TUBES