MHD = Magneto-Hydrodynamics, which applies to anything "fluid-like", like
a laminar flow of gas, which is ionized.
Turbine: "any of various machines having a rotor, usually with vanes or
blades, driven by the pressure, momentum, or reactive thrust of a moving
fluid, as steam, water, hot gases, or air, either occuring in the form
of free jets or as a fluid passing through and entirely filling a
housing around the rotor." (whew!)
So, we have a reaction chamber, the exhaust of which is being pushed
through: A) a turbine and B) an MHD "tube".
The turbine, if optimized for thrust, would basically not even be
present, since a straight "rocket" of our reactant would presumabely
provide more thrust than that same rocket passed through a rotor.
However, if the turbine is optimized for power generation, very little
thrust would result. So, the turbine is there, leaching some thrust
from our reaction but providing power, but not leaching so much power
that we don't have any thrust. We can also pass the exhaust
through our MHD and peel off power, as George explained.
Clearly, our initial "power" with this sort of reaction is based on an
ionized, rapidly moving, exhaust, either from some chemical reaction or
from a continuous pulse fusion reactor. If we were to postulate a linac
as our "injection" device, we would clearly need a source of electricity
to power it, and it seems obvious to me that we wouldn't be able to pull
any more power from our ion beam than was put into it by the linac.
So, my question comes down to: does anybody have any good figures on
whether having both the turbine stage *and* the MHD stage is efficient
in terms of power/thrust and so forth? Wouldn't just the MHD be better?
Dane
(Say, is there some significance to the fact that I've gotten about 5
copies of the 7/9 digest?)
[email removed]
[email removed]
TNS Stringer ------------ Terra/Solomani Rim (1827 G867975-8)
"I'm not a real Scientist, but I play one in an RPG."