Numerical investigation of real gas effects on magnetohydrodynamic hypersonic flows

Recent research on the use of electromagnetic fields for flow control in slightly ionized plasmas has focused on improving the performance of high-speed propulsion systems by reducing drag in scramjet inlets and increasing their efficiencies. To study and establish the viability of these MHD flow control techniques, the physical modeling capability of a viscous, compressible MHD code has been extended to account for real gas effects and variable electrical conductivity. 2-D MHD solutions for nominal scramjet flowpath geometries are obtained by solving the compressible viscous MHD equations in generalized coordinates using a modified Runge-Kutta time integration scheme, second-order accurate spatial discretization and a symmetric Davis-Yee TVD flux limiter. The effect of magnetic field on scramjet inlet flowfields, with air assumed to be frozen and in thermochemical equilibrium is quantified.