Closed cycle MHD generator with nonuniform gas-plasma flow driving recombinated plasma clots formed by high-energy electron beams

Summary form only given. A new concept of a closed cycle MHD generator without alkali seed has been suggested. The essence of it is the use of high-energy electron beam technology for a nonuniform gas-plasma flow in MHD channel creation. At the inlet of the MHD channel in supersonic flow of noble gas (He) plasma clots with a density about 10/sup 15/ cm/sup -3/ are formed by pulsed intense electron beams with energy about 100 keV. Gas flow drives these clots in a cross magnetic field along the MHD channel which has electrodes connected with a load by the Faraday\´s scheme. Because the nonuniform gas-plasma flow has not the conductivity in the Hall\´s EMF direction a Faraday current can flow only through the narrow plasma layers. The energy dissipation and Joule heating in a MHD channel support the nonequilibrium conductivity in these plasma layers. A gas flow pushes current layers and produces electric power at the expense of enthalpy extraction. The key element is the question of the plasma layer stability in MHD channels. The most dangerous instability is the overheating instability. It is shown that taking into account the phenomenon of "frozen" conductivity for recombinated plasma which appears for noble gas at T/sub e/>4000/spl deg/K the regime with /spl part//spl sigma///spl part/T/sub e/<0 can be realized. Due to the fulfilment of this condition the overheating instability is effectively suppressed.