Analytical And Experimental Studies of the Cyclic Magnetohydrodynamic Thruster Designs

This paper describes the results of our analytical and experimental studies of nonintrusive magnetohydrodynamic (MHO) pumping of seawater. The application of this study is in marine vehicle propulsion. Analytical models were developed to predict the performance characteristics of two different MHO thruster configurations in a closed loop environment. These analytical results are compared with experimental data. A significant increase in MHO energy conversion efficiency compared to this group's previous designs is realized. Photographic results of the MHO-induced flows are also presented.