Study of Two-Fluid Effects in Weakly Ionized Plasma Under Electromagnetic Fields

Abstract

The multifluid effects caused by the relative motion and interaction between plasma components have a significant effect on electromagnetohydrodynamic wave propagation and the related mass and energy transport of flows. In this work, the charged particle (ion and electron)–neutral two-fluid model is analyzed and employed to study the two-fluid effects (e.g., velocity drift and thermodynamic nonequilibrium between plasma components) of the weakly ionized plasma flows under the electromagnetic fields. In a hypersonic E×B crossed-field configuration acceleration problem, the increased electromagnetic field strength significantly enhances the two-fluid effects. When the load factor equals 3, which measures the strength of the electrode voltage and induced electromotive force, the relative velocity difference between the charged particles and neutrals can reach 28%. The influences of two-fluid effects appreciably increase with the Mach number and Knudsen number but decrease with the degree of ionization. This suggests that, as the vehicle speed and altitude increase, the two-fluid effects become more significant.