| Abstract: | The present experiment has aimed at the improvement in the performance of a shock‐tube‐driven disk CCMHD generator. For that purpose, an experimental setup was arranged as follows: (1) An inlet swirl was introduced. (2) The area ratio of the disk generator was small. (3) A cesium‐seeded helium gas was used as a working medium. Not only these factors but also the production of a homogeneous plasma contributed to outstanding performance characterized by an isentropic efficiency of 63% and an enthalpy extraction ratio of 30.8% at a stagnation temperature of 2250 K and stagnation pressure of 0.14 MPa. Furthermore, a maximum electrical power output of 1.23 MW and a maximum power density of 297 MW/m3 were obtained. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(2): 24–31, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20024 |
