In physics and engineering, magnetohydrodynamics is a model of electrically conducting fluids that treats all interpenetrating particle species together as a single continuous medium. It is primarily concerned with the low-frequency, large-scale, magnetic behavior in plasmas and liquid metals and has applications in multiple fields including space physics, geophysics, astrophysics, and engineering.
A magnetohydrodynamic drive or MHD accelerator is a method for propelling vehicles using only electric and magnetic fields with no moving parts, accelerating an electrically conductive propellant with magnetohydrodynamics. The fluid is directed to the rear and as a reaction, the vehicle accelerates forward.
The Lightcraft is a space- or air-vehicle driven by beam-powered propulsion, the energy source powering the craft being external. It was conceptualized by aerospace engineering professor Leik Myrabo at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, who developed the concept further with working prototypes, funded in the 1980s by the Strategic Defense Initiative organization, and the decade after by the Advanced Concept Division of the US Air Force AFRL, NASA's MFSC and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
A magnetohydrodynamic generator is a magnetohydrodynamic converter that transforms thermal energy and kinetic energy directly into electricity. An MHD generator, like a conventional generator, relies on moving a conductor through a magnetic field to generate electric current. The MHD generator uses hot conductive ionized gas as the moving conductor. The mechanical dynamo, in contrast, uses the motion of mechanical devices to accomplish this.
Computational magnetohydrodynamics (CMHD) is a rapidly developing branch of magnetohydrodynamics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve electrically conducting fluids. Most of the methods used in CMHD are borrowed from the well established techniques employed in Computational fluid dynamics. The complexity mainly arises due to the presence of a magnetic field and its coupling with the fluid. One of the important issues is to numerically maintain the (conservation of magnetic flux) condition, from Maxwell's equations, to avoid the presence of unrealistic effects, namely magnetic monopoles, in the solutions.
The Ayaks is a hypersonic waverider aircraft program started in the Soviet Union and currently under development by the Hypersonic Systems Research Institute (HSRI) of Leninets Holding Company in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The electrothermal instability is a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability appearing in magnetized non-thermal plasmas used in MHD converters. It was first theoretically discovered in 1962 and experimentally measured into a MHD generator in 1963 by Evgeny Velikhov.
"This paper shows that it is possible to assert sufficiently specifically that the ionization instability is the number one problem for the utilization of a plasma with hot electrons."
An ionization instability is any one of a category of plasma instabilities which is mediated by electron-impact ionization. In the most general sense, an ionization instability occurs from a feedback effect, when electrons produced by ionization go on to produce still more electrons through ionization in a self-reinforcing way.
Hans G. Hornung is an emeritus C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and Director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT). He received his bachelor (1960) and master (1962) degrees from the University of Melbourne and his Ph.D. degree (1965) in Aeronautics from Imperial College, London. He worked in the Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne, and in the Physics Department of the Australian National University (1967–1980), with a sabbatical year as a Humboldt Fellow in Darmstadt, Germany, 1974. In 1980 he accepted an offer to head the Institute for Experimental Fluid Mechanics of the DLR in Göttingen, Germany. He left Germany in 1987 to serve as the director of GALCIT. During his time at GALCIT he oversaw the construction of three large facilities: the T5 hypervelocity shock tunnel, the John Lucas Adaptive-Wall Wind Tunnel, and a supersonic Ludwieg tube.
The Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics is Purdue University's school of aerospace engineering contained within the Purdue University College of Engineering. The school offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. It also provides distance graduate education, including an online M.S. in Engineering with concentration in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a distance Ph.D. Its main office and some of its labs are located in the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering. As of 2010, the School has awarded an estimated 6% of BS degrees and 7% of PhDs in aerospace engineering in the United States.
John H. McMasters was an aeronautical engineer notable for his contributions to aerodynamics and engineering education.
William Rees Sears was an American aeronautical engineer and educator who worked at Caltech, Northrop Aircraft, Cornell University, and the University of Arizona. He was an editor of the Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences from 1955 to 1963 and the founding Editor of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics in 1969.
Gadicharla V.R. Rao , D.Sc. was an American aerospace engineer of Indian origin who worked in the jet engine and rocket propulsion fields. Rao worked for General Electric in their Gas Turbine Division department and was a research scientist at Marquardt Aircraft, before working for Rocketdyne, where he designed the optimum thrust nozzle. Often referred to as the "Rao's nozzle", it is part of the standard design for rocket engines. The Rao Nozzle is used currently in rocket, missile, and satellite control systems worldwide. It is taught in universities that offer Aerospace Engineering, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and Georgia Institute of Technology.
A magnetohydrodynamic converter is an electromagnetic machine with no moving parts involving magnetohydrodynamics, the study of the kinetics of electrically conductive fluids in the presence of electromagnetic fields. Such converters act on the fluid using the Lorentz force to operate in two possible ways: either as an electric generator called an MHD generator, extracting energy from a fluid in motion; or as an electric motor called an MHD accelerator or magnetohydrodynamic drive, putting a fluid in motion by injecting energy. MHD converters are indeed reversible, like many electromagnetic devices.
Noël Bakhtian is the former director of the Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has served as the director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at Idaho National Laboratory and as a senior policy advisor for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Salvatore Cezar Pais is an American aerospace engineer and inventor, currently working for the United States Space Force. He formerly worked at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. His patent applications for the US Navy attracted attention for their potential energy-producing applications, but also doubt about their feasibility, and speculation that they may be scams, pseudoscience, or disinformation intended to mislead the United States' adversaries.
Homer Joseph "Stewie" Stewart was an American aeronautical engineer, rocket propulsion expert, and Caltech professor, who pioneered the first American satellites.
Josette Bellan is a Romanian-French-American aerospace engineer and fluid dynamicist known for her research on turbulence in high-pressure reactions, and on the interactions between fluid dynamics and thermodynamics in these reactions. She is a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and visiting associate in the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Duane Torrance "Mac" McRuer was a scientist, engineer, and expert in aircraft flight and other vehicle controls who cofounded Systems Technology Inc. in 1957. He made many contributions to the theory and practical application of human-machine interaction and control.
Joaquim R. R. A. Martins is an aerospace engineer, academic, and author. He is the Pauline M. Sherman Collegiate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory. He also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
