AAWSAP DIRD, MHD Air Breathing Propulsion and Power for Aerospace Applications, November 2010

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Contents
SUMMARY ........................................................................................ , ..... iv
Chapter 1: CONCEPT OVERVIEW ............................................................1
Weakly Ionized Plasmas for Propulsion Applications ....................... 2
Electric Propulsion Systems ......................................................,......5
Chapter 2: AERONAUTICAL APPLICATIONS .................................. ..., ....11
Basic Principles of Magnetohydrodynamics and Requirements for
MHD Performance ......................................................................... 11
Nonequilibrium MHD in Cold Air Flows...........................................13
The Ajax Concept: MHD Bypass .................................................,....15
The Reverse Energy Bypass...........................................................18
MHD Applications to Reentry and Near-Orbital Flight ................ , ....20
Chapter 3: SPACE APPLICATIONS ........................................................23
Chapter 4: SUMMARY AND PREDICTIONS ............................................25
Chapter 5: ENDNOTES .........................................................................26
Figures
Figure 1. Electrothermal Arcjet Thruster.................................................7
Figure 2. Electrostatic Gridded Ion Thrusters......................................... 8
Figure 3. Field Orientation for Hall Field Systems and PS Hall
Thruster. .................................................................................... , 1, •••• • 8
Figure 4. Electromagnetic Accelerator Field Configuration and Self-
Field Electromagnetic Spacecraft Thrusters.......................................9
Figure 5. Air-Breathing MHD Engine................................................. , ....10
Figure 6 . MHD Control of Scramjet Inlet Using E-Beam Ionization. .......15
Figure 7. Schematic of Ajax Hypersonic Vehicle Concept......................16
Figure 8. The Reverse Energy Bypass Concept.. .................................... 19
Figure 9. Schematic of the Virtual Cowl Concept...................................20
Figure 10. Reentry Vehicle with Surface-Integrated MHD Device and
Plasma-Enabled Vi rtual Streamlining and L/D Increase............... , ....21
Figure 11. Electrothermal Arcjet Thruster on Satellite..........................23
Figure 12. SP-100 Space Nuclear Power System...................................24
Figure 13. Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) Concept Vehicles.........,....24
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