Flow behaviour and performance of the disk MHD generator in them closed loop experimental facility

A. Liberati¹ - T. Murakami² - Y. Okuno² - H. Yamasaki²

¹ Inter-University Consortium for the Application of Super-Computing for Universities and Research (CASPUR) via dei Tizii 6, Roma 00185, Italy }
² Department of Energy Sciences, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan

Abstract
A closed loop experimental facility for MHD power generation has been constructed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The main components are presented in this paper with typical experimental results, which show that high temperature (1900~K) argon gas can be successfully circulated in the experimental facility. Numerical simulations have been also carried out in order to clarify the plasma flow behaviour and generator performance of the disk MHD generator installed in the facility. The numerical results show that boundary layer separation occurs in the disk MHD generator for both non-MHD and MHD flow regimes. The boundary layer separation negatively influences the generator performance because of weak plasma ionization in the separated flow regions and makes difficult the achievement of significant power output during power generation experiments in the facility. Tables 1, Figs 7, Refs 14.