NEAR SURFACE MHD PROCESSES ENABLED BY MULTIFUNCTIONAL STRUCTURAL DEVICES

Abstract. The practical implementation of plasma aerodynamic devices will require their integration into materials and structures that can support the plasma generating requirements and are compatible with the vehicles on which they are to be mounted. Thus, in addition to conventional problems associated with thermal protection and cooling, the integration of electrodes and magnets must be taken into consideration. Our solution is to utilize a new lightweight, multifunctional truss core design with integrated electromagnets, thermal protection system, and cooling. Two concepts are presented in this paper. The first is for the extraction of power on a re-entry vehicle by magneto-hydrodynamic processes. The second is the use of a magnetically-driven surface arc for boundary layer control. In the first case, the air surrounding the re-entry vehicle is heated to temperatures which are hot enough to sustain equilibrium ionization if the flow is seeded with a small concentration of alkali metal vapor. In the second case, it is assumed that the flow temperature is too low for thermally-sustained ionization, even with seeding, so conductivity is sustained by an electric discharge