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Whatever happened to MHD?

B

Bill Shymanski

Jan 1, 1970
0
Whatever happened to magnetohydrodyamics (MHD) for electric power
generation? This was a big topic back in the mid '70s according to my
"Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers", with test setups being
done by Avco in the United States and in Moscow...but I get the
impression that MHD never really took off after those days.

I suppose with combined-cycle gas turbines hitting over 50% efficiency
(the big new General Electric and Alsthom turbines being examples), that
the motivation for MHD as a "topping" cycle has faded. Certainly the
difficulties of getting a gas to conduct electricity didn't make MHD any
easier to implement, and the issue of "seed" material recovery would
also have added to the complexity.

Is there a commerical-scale MHD in operation out there, or, like fusion
research, is the primary product of MHD research papers?

Bill
 
D

Don Kelly

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bill Shymanski said:
Whatever happened to magnetohydrodyamics (MHD) for electric power
generation? This was a big topic back in the mid '70s according to my
"Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers", with test setups being
done by Avco in the United States and in Moscow...but I get the
impression that MHD never really took off after those days.

I suppose with combined-cycle gas turbines hitting over 50% efficiency
(the big new General Electric and Alsthom turbines being examples), that
the motivation for MHD as a "topping" cycle has faded. Certainly the
difficulties of getting a gas to conduct electricity didn't make MHD any
easier to implement, and the issue of "seed" material recovery would
also have added to the complexity.

Is there a commerical-scale MHD in operation out there, or, like fusion
research, is the primary product of MHD research papers?

Bill
It wasn't getting the gas to conduct, it was getting the materials in the
hot plasma to survive for a reasonable length of time. As far as I know, the
papers produced, if burnt probably could produce as much energy as the
actual devices did.
I could be wrong as I am pretty well out of circulation.
 
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