Numerical study on performances and characteristics of magnetohydrodynamic converging channel

Numerical simulations were conducted to study magneto-hydrodynamic(MHD) flow in a converging channel at low magnetic Reynolds number by a numerical procedure composed of an entropy conditioned scheme for solving the non-homogeneous Navier-Stokes equations, in conjunction with an SOR method for solving the elliptic equation governing the electrical potential. Two kinds of channels with dissimilar geometry at different magnetic interaction parameter were investigated. It was found in the MHD converging channel, a separation would take place near the inlet of the channel on the electrode walls. The electric current lines would be increasingly distorted as the magnetic interactive parameter increased. Numerical results and comparisons indicated that the performance of the MHD channel with same cross-sections is better that the converging channel.