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Title: Experimental study of time-varying current flow between electrodes immersed in a laboratory magnetoplasma

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:6582809

The flow of current between electrodes immersed in plasmas is a topic of fundamental importance in the operation of plasma probes, plasma confinement research, and space-based experiments. To date, however, research has been limited to time-stationary treatments of the regions immediate to the electrodes themselves. For the case of non-emitting electrodes, positive and negative charge carriers are predicted to flow from the entire plasma into the oppositely charged electrodes, while only one species is involved if one of the electrodes emits charged particles. If the charge carriers are magnetized, the current flow is restricted to the reattachment point, resulting in a more-efficient data acquisition and it providing a detailed description of the instantaneous spatial relationship of the flow field. Intense studies were conducted using a 2.9-Hz sinusoidal flow with a frequency parameter of 7.5 and with mean and modulation Reynolds numbers of 575 and 350, respectively. For flow through mild occlusions, a 45% axisymmetric and a 38% asymmetric stenoses, the flow-separation pattern displayed oscillation of both the separation boundary and the reattachment point with some nonperiodic components.

Research Organization:
California Univ., Los Angeles (USA)
OSTI ID:
6582809
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English