Numerical and experimental studies on the effectiveness of time-varying electromagnetic fields in reducing electron density

When an aircraft or a hypersonic vehicle re-enters the atmosphere,the plasma sheath generated can severely attenuate electromagnetic wave signals,causing the problem of communication blackout.A new method based on time-varying E×B fields is proposed to improve on the existing static E×B fields and mitigate the radio blackout problem.The use of the existing method is limited by the invalid electron density reduction resulting from current density j=0 A m^(-2)in plasma beyond the Debye radius.The most remarkable feature is the introduction of a time-varying electric field to increase the current density in the plasma to overcome the Debye shielding effect on static electric field.Meanwhile,a magnetic field with the same frequency and phase as the electric field is applied to ensure that the electromagnetic force is always acting on the plasma in one direction.In order to investigate the effect of time-varying E×B fields on the plasma electron density distribution,two directions of voltage application are considered in numerical simulation.The simulation results indicate that different voltage application methods generate electromagnetic forces in different directions in the plasma,resulting in repulsion and vortex effects in the plasma.A comparison of the vortex effect and repulsion effect reveals that the vortex effect is better at reducing the electron density.The local plasma electron density can be reduced by more than 80%through the vortex effect,and the dimensions of the area of reduced electron density reach approximately 6 cm×4 cm,meeting the requirements of electromagnetic wave propagation.Besides,the vortex effect of reducing the electron density in RAM-C(radio attenuation measurements for the study of communication blackout)reentry at an altitude of 40 km is analyzed.On the basis of the simulation results,an experiment based on a rectangular-window discharge device is proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the vortex effect.Experimental results show that time-varying E×B fields can reduce the electron density in plasma of 3 cm thickness by 80%at B=0.07 T and U_(0)=1000 V.The investigations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of reducing the required strength of the magnetic field and overcoming the Debye shielding effect.Additionally,the method is expected to provide a new way to apply a magnetic window in engineering applications.

Mitigation of blackout problem for reentry vehicle in traveling magnetic field with induced current

In this paper, a novel solution mitigating the radio blackout problem is proposed, which improves existing traveling magnetic field(TMF)-based methods. The most significant advance lies in replacing the external injection with self-induced current, which does not require electrodes. The improved analytical model is derived to evaluate the electron density reduction taking into consideration the self-induced current for various TMF velocities. The plasma reduction performance is analyzed for several conditions including the total absence of injected current. The results show that the velocity may be used to trade off the injected current and, when sufficiently large, eliminates the need for an injected current while mitigating radio blackout. The effectiveness of this solution to the blackout problem is demonstrated in commonly used aerospace communication bands. With a field strength of less than 0.15 T, increasing the velocity from40 m s^-1 to 3100 m s^-1 is all that is required to obviate the need for an injected current. Moreover,typical reduction ratios for electronic density tolerance(2, 1.9, 1.75 and 3 times for the L-, S-, Cand X-bands, respectively, at an altitude of 40 km) remain unchanged. Increasing the velocity of the TMF is much easier than injecting current via a metal electrode into a high-temperature flow field. The TMF method appears practical in regard to possible future applications.

Experiment on low-frequency electromagnetic waves propagating in shock-tube-generated magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma

We propose a method of applying a static magnetic field to reduce the attenuation of the magnetic field component(SH) of low-frequency electromagnetic(LF EM) waves in dense plasma. The principle of this method is to apply a static magnetic field to limit electron movement, thereby increasing the equivalent resistance and thus reducing the induced current and SH. We consider the static magnetic field acting on the plasma of the entire induced current loop rather than on the local plasma, where the induced current is excited by the magnetic field component of LF EM waves. Analytical expressions of SH suitable for magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma are derived by adopting an equivalent circuit approach, by which SHis calculated with respect to various plasma parameter settings. The results show that SH can be reduced under a static magnetic field and the maximum magnetic field strength that mitigates blackout is less than 0.1 T. Experiments in which LF EM waves propagate in a shock-tubegenerated magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma are also conducted. SH measured under the magnetic field(the magnetic field strength B0 acting on the magnetic field probe was about0.06 T) reduces at f=10 MHz and f=30 MHz when ne≈1.9×1013 cm-3, which is consistent with theoretical results. The verification of the theory thus suggests that applying a static magnetic field with a weak magnetic field has the potential to improve the transmission capacity of LF EM waves in dense plasma.

Effect of rotating liquid samples on dynamic propagation and aqueous activation of a helium plasma jet

This paper aims to explore the effects of a rotating plasma-activated liquid on the dynamic propagation and biomedical application of a helium plasma jet.The spatial distribution of reactive species and the associated physico-chemical reactions are altered by the rotating liquid,which shows a significant weakening in the axial propagation of the plasma bullet and a strengthening in its radial expansion at the liquid surface.The phenomenon is prompted by the nonzero rotational velocity of the liquid and is regulated by airflow,target distance and liquid permittivity.The concentrations of aqueous reactive species,especially OH and O~-,and the inactivation effectiveness on cancer cells are weakened,indicating that a rotating liquid is not conducive to water treatment of the plasma jet although the treatment area of the plasma jet increases dynamically.This finding is of significance for the plasma–liquid interaction and the biomedical-related applications of plasma jets.