FIELD: power engineering. SUBSTANCE: method involves acceleration of inert gas flow, production of time-periodic high-conductivity layers upstream of MHD generator channel displacement and self-maintenance of such layers within channel due to flow energy. High-conductivity layers are produced by means of high-energy electron pulse beams. Beam power is found from condition ne>nsaha(Tion), where ne is electron concentration in layer; nsaha is equilibrium electron concentration found from Saha equation; Tion is threshold temperature at which avalanche thermal ionization starts. Temperature Te in conducting layers is maintained within the range of 400K<Te<Tion. EFFECT: improved reliability of energy conversion. 1 dwg
