Fundamental and Applied Plasma Research

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This program will use facilities and expertise developed with past NSF support to embark on a combined experimental and theoretical effort of fundamental and applied research. The fundamental research will be a study of anomalous current penetration. It is well known from classical eletromagnetic theory and also from experience in many practical situations, that high frequency AC currents do not penetrate uniformly through conductors as do DC currents but rather are confined to a narrow suface region called the skin layer. It is widely presumed that this classical skin effect is an unavoidable law of nature; this presumption is incorrect because the skin effect is based on Ohm's law which is not fundamental. In fact, the classical skin effect occurs only when the elementary form of Ohm's law together with a symmetry assumption apply; this situation corresponds to current penetration by laminar diffusion. In the more complicated situations to be studied here, asymmetric geometry is incorporated and the elementary Ohm's law is replaced by a more complex form; these changes allow stochastic or convective diffusion to occur with the consequence of much greater current penetration than provided by laminar diffusion. The applied research will consist of a serious attempt to use magnetohyrodynamic plasma stabilization techniques to eliminate instabilities endemic and injurious to the arcs in electric furnaces used by the steel industry. Paranthetically, these electric furnaces provide approximately one third of the total steel manufactured in the U.S.