Further Studies on Electromagnetic Means of Adding Heat and Kinetic Energy to a Gas

摘要

Research on a travelling wave plasma accelerator for ultimate use as a high altitude high velocity flow simulation device is reported for the period January 1965 through January 1968. The work reported covers: development and evaluation of a nonequilibrium plasma source using atmospheric air and a VHF electrical discharge, development of a 'ring circulator' accelerator coil using a slow transmission line, calculations of the performance of various model accelerators using numerical integration of the nonlinear one-dimensional equations of motion, a study of the effect of nonsinusoidal coils on polyphase accelerators, and a parametric study of the accelerator performance. A technique for measuring flow velocity using the phase shift of ion-acoustic waves excited in the plasma is discussed and measurements in the RF plasma are reported. A study of spectroscopic temperature measuring techniques is also reported. (Author)