Three-dimensional numerical simulation on helical channel MHD thruster

MHD (magneto hydrodynamics) thruster is expected to become widely used with the development of superconducting technology because of its low noise and vibration. Elementary research on a helical-type MHD thruster has started at IEE, KUMM and NIMS, and a numerical simulation of the thruster has been carried out by IEE. By comparing the simulation results with the experimental results, we found that the calculated values were agreed with the experimental values in general. In addition, from the simulation results, we obtained the values inside the channel which were quite useful for the configuration optimization and could not be obtained in the experiment. It is proved that the 3-D numerical simulation is a new way to design and study the helical channel MHD thruster.