Analysis of applied magnetic field and electrical current due to electrical efficiency of MHD accelerator

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

Corresponding authors: sukarsan@alumni.ui.ac.id makbul@ieee.org

Received: 24 July 2009
Revised: 27 August 2009
Accepted: 3 September 2009
Published online: 30 October 2009

Abstract

Analysis of applied magnetic field and electrical current in Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) accelerator due to electrical efficiency has been numerically investigated. Studies were carried out using air plasma as a working gas in equilibrium condition. Composition of simulated air-plasma consists of two species, N₂, and O₂, with concentration of 1 mol and 0.284 mol, respectively. The working gas is seeded with potassium and seed fraction is 1% by weight of all gas, which corresponds to 0.949% in mole ratio. In order to solve the set of differential equations with MHD approximations, the MacCormack scheme is employed. The Magnetohydrodynamic Augmented Propulsion Experiment (MAPX) channel designed and developed by NASA MSFC is used to investigate the MHD accelerator performance. Numerical results show the characteristic of MHD accelerator electrical efficiency with variation of different applied magnetic field and electrical input.