Two dimensional time dependent MHD simulation of plasma armatures

Abstract

The authors report on the development of a two-dimensional MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) code to simulate internal motions in a railgun plasma armature. The equations of resistive MHD with ohmic heating and radiation heat transport are used. A flux-corrected transport code is utilized to advance all quantities in time. Preliminary runs show the growth and subsequent shedding of vortex structures in response to a small perturbation on an initial equilibrium.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>