Fully 3-D Numerical Investigation of Phenomena Occurring in Marine Magnetohydrodynamic Thrusters

A magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) thruster is a type of electric motor which does not have mechanical moving parts and directly converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. In this paper, a multiphysics numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the phenomena occurred in the channel of m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on plasma science 2019-04, Vol.47 (4), p.1818-1826
Main Authors: Haghparast, Mortaza, Alizadeh Pahlavani, Mohammad Reza, Azizi, Diako
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3-D
Coils
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Electric motors
Electrodes
Electrolysis
Electromagnetic forces
Energy
Fluid flow
Magnetic fields
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) thruster
Magnetohydrodynamic thrusters
Magnetohydrodynamics
marine propulsion
Mathematical model
Mathematical models
Numerical models
numerical simulation
Propulsion
Seawater
Simulation
Solid modeling
Superconducting magnets
Thrusters
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Summary:A magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) thruster is a type of electric motor which does not have mechanical moving parts and directly converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. In this paper, a multiphysics numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the phenomena occurred in the channel of marine MHD thrusters. In this simulation, all electric, magnetic, and fluid flow fields have been considered 3-D. For this purpose, a marine MHD thruster model with saddle-shaped coils is selected, and its dimensions are determined. Then, this thruster is simulated numerically, and its electromagnetic and fluid flow parameters are studied. In this simulation, the effects of seawater electrolysis and end loss are taken into account. An experimental setup is established to validate the results obtained from the numerical simulation. The results reveal that the nonuniformities of the electric and magnetic fields along the channel have a great impact on the performance of the thruster. Unlike the results obtained in the previous studies, it is shown that the velocity near the electrodes is higher than that near the sidewalls arisen from the higher electromagnetic force close to the electrodes.
ISSN:0093-3813
1939-9375
DOI:10.1109/TPS.2019.2901305