THE STABILITY OF TWISTED MAGNETIC FIELDS IN A FLUID WITH FINITE ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY. 2.SPECIAL RESULTS

Technical Report · Mon Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1960

OSTI ID:4153711

Tayler, R J

A formal solution was previously given to the problem of the stability of an incompressible conducting fluid carrying a uniform axial current and a uniform axial magnetic field. No numerical results were obtained because of the extreme complexity of the transcendental dispersion relation. A complete solution was obtained earlier for a fluid of infinite conductivity, and it is shown that a solution can also be obtained when the conductivity is small and tends towards zero. The problem can also be solved for perturbation helices coinciding with the magnetic field helix. The system is more unstable for low conductivity than high conductivity (if the magnetic field is kept constant) and there are cases in which the system is stable for infinite conductivity but unstable for zero conductivity. The results given cannot be applied to a compressible plasma, but they can be applied to a liquid conductor such as mercury or liquid solium. The results for axisymmetric perturbations are compared with those obtained in an experiment described by Dattner at the Geneva Congerence. The theoretical and experimental results appear to be in reasonable agreement. Such an agreement is not obtained for the m = 1 perturbations, but there are important differences between the experiment and the simple theory described. (auth)

• Research Organization: United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Research Group. Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Berks, England
• NSA Number: NSA-14-016346
• OSTI ID: 4153711
• Report Number(s): AERE-R-3229
• Country of Publication: United Kingdom
• Language: English

Related Subjects

CONFIGURATION
CURRENTS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
FLUIDS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MERCURY
OSCILLATIONS
PHYSICS
PRESSURE
SODIUM
STABILITY