| Abstract: | Theoretical and experimental studies made in recent years show that the plasma flow in the duct of a real MHD generator differs significantly from the quasi-uniform model of the flow in an idealized MHD duct. This difference appears primarily in the analysis of the electrodynamics of the MHD generator. Usually the actual electrical characteristics of the generator are poorer than expected, which may be caused, in particular, by flow nonuniformities and electrical leaks in the duct. The influence of these factors shows up particularly strongly in the presence of the Hall effect.Some qualitative and quantitative estimates of these phenomena have already been made in the literature. The necessity for taking into account the influence of the cold boundary layer on the effective conductance of the plasma in the duct was shown in 1]; in 2] it was shown that this influence increases markedly in the presence of the Hall effect. The influence of shunting of the plasma by the electrically conductive walls of the duct was considered in 3–5].The present paper describes an analysis of the combined influence of the effects associated with flow nonuniformities and electrical leaks for the case of anisotropy of the plasma conductivity, and an example is presented of the calculation of flow in a MHD generator with finite variation of the parameters. |
