Conceptual design of coupled nonequilibrium disk MHD generator and superconducting magnet system

Abstract

The authors propose a new conceptual design method for a coupled nonequilibrium disk MHD generator and superconducting magnet system. At first, a generator with constant magnetic flux density is conceptually designed by using the new generator design method recently developed by the authors, and several superconducting magnets suitable for the generator are conceptually designed. Next, considering the obtained magnetic flux density distribution of each magnet, the design calculation of the generator is performed again, and the specifications of the generator are corrected. From the obtained coupled systems, the optimum system is finally selected through synthetical consideration of various requirements. The procedure of the proposed method is very simple, and no iterative calculation is contained in the correction process. Incorporating the new generator design method makes this advantage possible because the generator size can be fixed in the correction process. In the conventional method, a change of magnetic flux density distribution leads directly to a change in the generator size, and therefore, design calculations of the generator and magnet should be iterated in the correction process until they converge to consistent sizes. The procedure of the new conceptual design method is explained in detail by taking the case of a supersonic generator with a caesium seeded helium plasma and 100 MW thermal input.