Dispersion of seed vapor and gas ionization in an MHD second stage combustor and channel

Abstract

An approach is introduced for the simulation of a magnetohydrodynamic system consisting of a second stage combustor, a convergent nozzle, and a channel. The simulation uses an Argonne integral combustion flow computer code and another Argonne channel computer code to predict flow, thermal and electric properties in the seed particle laden reacting flow in the system. The combustion code is a general hydrodynamics computer code for two-phase, two-dimensional, turbulent, and reacting flows, based on mass, momentum, and energy conservation laws for gaseous and condensed phases. The channel code is a multigrid three-dimensional computer code for compressible flow subject to magnetic and electric interactions. Results of this study suggests that (1) the processes of seed particle evaporation, seed vapor dispersion, and gas ionization in the reacting flow are critical to the evaluation of the downstream channel performance and (2) particle size, loading, and inlet profile have strong effects on wall deposition and plasma temperature development