Experimental Study on Superconducting Helical Channel MHD Thruster

A superconducting helical channel magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) thruster with a 7T conduction-cooled solenoid superconducting magnet and a Φ178mm helical channel was designed and constructed. An experimental closed-loop for the demonstration MHD thruster was set up and a series of tests using artificial seawater were carried out under different magnetic fields and working currents. The test results show that when the working current is 400A, the conductivity of working liquid is 6.3S/m and the magnetic field is 7T, a duct thrust force of 353N and output power of 257W are got with a channel efficiency of 70% and the flow rate of the closed-loop is 46.26m 3 /h. The flow loss of the helical channel is about 49kPa when the average velocity in the effective section of the helical channel is 5.6m/s.