COMPUTATIONAL MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC MODEL OF A NONUNIFORM

Parametric engineering models of the gas dynamic mirror (GDM) fusion propulsion systems[1, 2, 3, 4] have produced potentially feasible systems. How-ever, these systems are extremely large and massive due to neutron or bremsstrahlung radiation losses for traditional and advanced fusion fuels, respectively. In order to explore designs beyond the simple uni-form GDM represented by the parametric model, a 3-D complex geometry ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modeling tool[5] based on ¯nite volume meth-ods and adaptive Cartesian grids was developed. The explicit nature of the algorithm combined with the near relativistic magneto-acoustic wave speeds lim-ited the utility of the model. Presented here is a new MHD implicit alorithm with embedded magnetic ¯elds which is capable of modeling complex, non-uniform GDMs