Performance study of a magnetohydrodynamic accelerator using air-plasma as working gas Makbul Anwari * , Satoru Takahashi, Nobuhiro Harada Department of Electrical Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, 1603-1 Kamitomioka, Nagaoka 940-2188, Japan Received 7 March 2004; received in revised form 20 July 2004; accepted 29 December 2004 Available online 19 February 2005 Abstract The fundamental performance of a linear Faraday type magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) accelerator under chemical and thermal equilibrium conditions is studied in this paper. Quasi-one dimensional numer- ical simulation is performed to characterize acceleration along the specified channel. In order to solve the set of differential equations of magnetohydrodynamics, the MacCormack scheme is employed. In this pres- ent calculation, a working gas of air-plasma, consisting of diatomic molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, is considered in order to actualize application of the MHD accelerator propulsion system. Numerical results show the characteristics of flow velocity, gas temperature and electrical conductivity of the MHD accelerator with the working gas of air-plasma. The computations are compared with numer- ical simulation results using the inert gas of argon evaluated in past studies. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Magnetohydrodynamic; MHD accelerator; Air-plasma; Acceleration performance; Equilibrium plasma 0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2004.12.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 258 46 6000x5339; fax: +81 258 47 9500. E-mail address: makbul@stn.nagaokaut.ac.jp (M. Anwari). www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 2605–2613