A pressure-based high resolution numerical method for resistive MHD

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2014

In the paper we describe in detail a numerical method for the resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations involving viscous flow and report the results of application to a number of typical MHD test cases. The method is of the finite volume type but mixes aspects of pressure-correction and density based solvers; the algorithm arrangement is patterned on the well-known PISO algorithm, which is a pressure method, while the flux computation makes use of the AUSM-MHD scheme, which originates from density based methods. Five groups of test cases are addressed to verify and validate the method. We start with two resistive MHD cases, namely the Shercliff and Hunt flow problems, which are intended to validate the method for low-speed resistive MHD flows. The remaining three test cases, namely the cloud-shock interaction, the MHD rotor and the MHD blast wave, are standard 2D ideal MHD problems that serve to validate the method under high-speed flow and complex interaction of MHD shocks. Finally, we demonstrate the method with a more complex application problem, and discuss results of simulation for a quasi–bi-dimensional self-field magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster, for which we study the effect of cathode length upon the electromagnetic nozzle performance.