Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

MHD power generation with fully ionized seed

Journal Article · · J. Energy; (United States)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2514/3.47944· OSTI ID:6520369
Recovery of power density in the regime of fully ionized seed has been demonstrated experimentally using an MHD disk generator with the effective Hall parameter up to 5.0 when the seed was fully ionized. The experiments were conducted with a shock-heated and potassium-seeded argon plasma under the following conditions: stagnation gas pressure = 0.92 atm, stagnation gas temperature = 2750 K, flow Mach number = 2.5, and seed fraction = 1.4 x 10/sup -5/. Measurements of electron-number density and spectroscopic observations of both potassium and argon lines confirmed that the recovery of power output was due to the reduction of ionization instability. This fact indicates that the successful operation of a disk generator utilizing nonequilibrium ionization seems to be possible and that the suppression of ionization instability can also provide higher adiabatic efficiency. Furthermore, the lower seed fraction offers technological advantages related to seed problems.
Research Organization:
Tokyo Inst. of Technology, Japan
OSTI ID:
6520369
Journal Information:
J. Energy; (United States), Journal Name: J. Energy; (United States) Vol. 1:5; ISSN JENED
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English