Analytical study of magnetohydrodynamic propulsion stability

Abstract

In this paper an analytical solution for the stability of the fully developed flow drive in a magneto-hydro-dynamic pump with pulsating transverse Eletro-magnetic fields is presented. To do this, a theoretical model of the flow is developed and the analytical results are obtained for both the cylindrical and Cartesian configurations that are proper to use in the propulsion of marine vessels. The governing parabolic momentum PDEs are transformed into an ordinary differential equation using approximate velocity distribution. The numerical results are obtained and asymptotic analyses are built to discover the mathematical behavior of the solutions. The maximum velocity in a magneto-hydro-dynamic pump versus time for various values of the Stuart number, electro-magnetic interaction number, Reynolds number, aspect ratio, as well as the magnetic and electrical angular frequency and the shift of the phase angle is presented. Results show that for a high Stuart number there is a frequency limit for stability of the fluid flow in a certain direction of the flow. This stability frequency is dependent on the geometric parameters of a channel.

Keywords

stability frequency / Stuart number / transient flow / Eletro-magnetic interaction number / duct flow / MHD propulsion