Experimental Study on the Improvement in the Performance of a Less Divergent Disk MHD Generator

Experiments using a shock tube driven less divergent MHD generator were carried out to improve the isentropic efficiency, where a high magnetic flux density of 4T was applied. The power output of 56kW was obtained, where the enthalpy extraction ratio and the isentropic efficiency were 15% and 45%, respectively. The highest power density of 700MW/m3 was recorded which was due to high Hall parameter and high electrical conductivity by applying high flat magnetic field. The isentropic efficiency was comparable to previous ones obtained with larger more divergent channels.