ELECTRODE BOUNDARY LAYERS IN DIRECT CURRENT PLASMA ACCELERATORS. Technical Note No. 1

Technical Report · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1960

OSTI ID:4167216

Kerrebrock, J L

One of the problems in the development of d-c plasma accelerators is that of boundary layer growth on the electrode surfaces. These surfaces must be maintained at a somewhat lower temperature than is desirable in the bulk of the gas flow. The associated reduction in electrical conductivity near the electrode surface, together with the continuous current through the boundary layer, may result in greatly augmented Joule heating near the surface, and increased heat transfer. This phenomenon is treated within the framework of boundary layer theory. It is found that similar solutions for the thermal and viscous boundary layers exist for a certain class of accelerated flows in which the velocity varies as a power of the streamwise coordinate. The solutions show that the heat transfer rate at Mach numbers near unity may be as much as ten times that which would be expected for a normal boundary laver. At higher Mach numbers, the similarity is not precisely valid: however, the analysis indicates qualitatively that a stagnation enthalpy overshoot may occur in the high temperature portion of the boundary layer as a result of the electromagnetic acceleration. (auth)

• Research Organization: California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena. Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center
• NSA Number: NSA-14-015372
• OSTI ID: 4167216
• Report Number(s): AFOSR-TN-60-287
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ACCELERATORS
CURRENTS
DIRECT CURRENT
ELECTRODES
GAS FLOW
HEAT TRANSFER
LAYERS
MACH NUMBER
PHYSICS
PLASMA
SURFACES
TEMPERATURE
THERMODYNAMICS
VELOCITY
VISCOSITY