Influences of electrical conductivity of wall on magnetohydrodynamic control of aerodynamic heating

Influences of the electrical conductivity of the wall of a space vehicle on the control of the aerodynamic heating in Earth-reentry flight by applying the magnetic field are numerically examined using an axisymmetric two-dimensional (r-z) thermochemical nonequilibrium magnetohydrodynamic computational fluid dynamics code. Numerical results show that when the wall of an axisymmetric blunt body is assumed to be an insulating wall, applying a dipole-type magnetic field with r and z components pushes the bow shock wave away from the blunt body and reduces the aerodynamic heating. On the other hand, when the wall is assumed to be a conducting wall, the aerodynamic heating cannot be reduced by applying the magnetic field. This is because the strong Hall electric field on the r-z plane cannot be obtained in the case of the conducting wall, so that the large electric current density in the azimuthal direction cannot be obtained and the shock wave cannot be pushed away from the blunt body.