Magnetohydrodynamic drive
Yamato 1
Caterpillar drive

Magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD)

Magnetohydrodynamics involves magnetic fields (magneto) and fluids (hydro) that conduct electricity and interact (dynamics).¹ MHD technology is based on a fundamental law of electromagnetism: When a magnetic field and an electric current intersect in a liquid, their repulsive intersection propels the liquid in a direction perpendicular to both the field and the current.²

Magnetohydrodynamics Simple Equations

A computer actuated relay clicks in the small control room at Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Nearby, a two story high power generator starts up.… But there’s a strange silence. There’s no whine from high speed turbine blades, no hum from copper generator coils whirring in a magnetic field, no hiss of pressurized, superhot steam. That’s because Etgar 3, the world’s first liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) plant, has no moving mechanical parts. Instead, a stream of relatively low temperature metal is forced through a magnetic field. Electricity is then tapped directly from electrodes contacting this metal — up to 30 percent more efficiently than with turbine based generators, say proponents.³

In place of a propeller or paddle wheel, [the Yamato 1] uses jets of water produced by a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion system.… Inside each thruster, the seawater flows into six identical tubes, arranged in a circle like a cluster of rocket engines. The ten inch diameter tubes are individually wrapped in saddle shaped superconducting magnetic coils made of niobium titanium alloy filaments packed into wires with copper cores and shells. Liquid helium cools the coils to –452.13°F, just a few degrees above absolute zero, keeping them in a superconducting state in which they have almost no resistance to electricity. Electricity flowing through the coils generates powerful magnetic fields within the thruster tubes. When an electric current is passed between a pair of electrodes inside each tube, seawater is forcefully ejected from the tubes, jetting the [craft] forward.⁴

Yamato II

Endnotes

¹ “Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD),” Dictionary of Scientific Literacy , Richard P. Brennan (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992), p. 195.

2 Dennis Normile and Robert Langreth, “Superconductivity goes to sea,” Popular Science, Nov 1992.

³ John Free, “Now: liquid-metal MHD; magnetohydrodynamic power,” Popular Science, July 1985.

⁴ Normile and Langreth, “Superconductivity.”

Magnetohydrodynamics(MHD)

Endnotes

See also

Magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD)