Plasma Behavior in Disk MHD Generator with He/Cs

Abstract

Power generating experiments on a nonequilibrium disk MHD generator with cesium seeded helium gas have been carried out using a shock tube facility. Disk generators with and without inlet swirl vanes are used. Objectives of this research are to investigate plasma behavior in the disk MHD generator with and without introducing the inlet swirl. A high-speed phot.ocamera and multichannel spectroscope are used to examine plasma structure and plasma properties. The results can be summarized as follows: (i) Strong MHD interaction causes circular shock waves, especially in the swirl-flow generator (with swirl vanes), strong wakes are caused. (ii) Providing suitsable seed fraction suppresses these circular shock waves and wakes and the plasma structure become relatively uniform, that increases enthalpy extraction ratio. (iii) Introduction of inlet swirl realize both high electrical conductivity and high flow velocity in radial direction, therefore high enthalpy extraction ratio was achieved.