Experimental study on propellant driven magnetohydrodynamic generator

Experiments have been set up respectively to study on the propellant formula, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) channel and magnetic facility, of which all were applied in MHD generator. Then the MHD generator was manufactured in laboratory and the output voltage was test. Experimental results show that the solid composite propellant with cesium nitrate (CsNO₃) could be used for propellant driven MHD generator, by which the average gas electronic density generated is 1.9×10¹² cm^-3 that is approximate 1000 times of normal combustion products in the layout of normal rocket monitor. The strong magnetic field can be achieved by the magnet-condensing technology in the volume of 104 mm×360 mm×500 mm, the average magnetic induction reaches to 1.24T and the uniformity of magnet field exceeds 95%. The average voltage output is 90V. All the above indicates that the chemical energy of propellant has been partly translated into electrical energy successfully. This study could afford reference for the research of high power pulse source.