An experimental study of magneto-viscous effects in a combustion plasma

Abstract

In this experimental study, magneto-viscous interactions are produced in a combustion plasma by inserting a refractory plate into a rectangular duct flow. The experiments consist of internal measurements of velocity distribution for both ordinary hydrodynamic flow and MHD flow (with a transverse magnetic field).Two configurations of the inserted plate are adopted: firstly a plate long in the flow direction, but inserted only halfway across the duct, and secondly a plate which extends across the full width of the duct, but which is `semi-infinite' in the flow direction. In each case the magnetic field is normal to the plate.In the MHD flows, the first plate configuration produces transverse wakes, emanating from the edge of the plate in the direction of the applied magnetic field. In the second configuration, where the developing boundary layer is investigated, the Hartmann effect is demonstrated. The experimental results are for flows in which the fluid properties are not uniform. They show the same trends as do theoretical solutions for similar configurations with uniform fluid properties.The magnitude of the interactions produced in this small-scale experiment suggests that highly significant magneto-viscous effects could be produced in large MHD generators which operate at much higher values of the Hartmann number.