Electronic edition ISSN 1574-0579

Performance analysis and experimental study of marine MHD seawater pump

X. Chen¹ , L. Zhao² , F. Wang¹ , Q. Xia¹ , Y. Li¹ , A. Peng^1,2

¹ Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract
The seawater pipeline system is a major source of ship radiation noise, and the marine seawater pump is the main contributor to the pipeline system noise. This article proposes a low hydraulic loss and high flow rate helical channel marine MHD seawater pump based on the high quiet seawater MHD thruster. Firstly, the structure of the MHD seawater pump is optimized using the genetic algorithm combined with a large warm-bore solenoid superconducting magnet. Subsequently, the performance under design conditions is numerically analyzed using Fluent for three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations. Finally, experiments were conducted on a custom-built loop test platform to evaluate the pump's performance under various conditions. The extrapolation of the test results showed that with an external magnetic field of 7.6 T and an operating current of 100 A, when the MHD seawater pump flow rate was 180 m³/h, the pressure rise could reach 0.97 kPa, the efficiency was 7.3