Feasibility of an Onboard Surface Hall Magnetohydrodynamic Power Generator in Reentry Flight

摘要

The feasibility of electrical power extraction in Earth-reentry flights by using an onboard surface Hall-type magnetohydrodynamic power generator is numerically examined by using an axisymmetric two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic code, which accounts for the thermochemical nonequilibrium states and the Hall effect. The present study assumes that a reentry body with a nose radius of 1.35 m is equipped with a pair of electrodes on the wall surface for extracting electrical power produced by the Hall effect. Numerical results demonstrate that the onboard surface Hall-type magnetohydrodynamic power generator can extract the electrical power above 1MW by applying the magnetic field of 0.3-0.5 T at an altitude of about 60 km and a flight velocity of about 5.6 km/s. The numerical results also show that the heat flux to the body is further suppressed by the applied magnetic field when the load voltage between electrodes is increased. This is because an increase of load voltage leads to a strengthening of the magnetohydrodynamic interaction.