Progress of the MHD ship propulsion project in China

A small project for developing superconducting MHD ship propulsion is included in China's State High Technology Development Program. The project goal is to construct a MHD model ship with a 5T superconducting helical thruster. A 1.0 ton model ship with 3.5 m length, 0.85 m width was driven by the 5 T, 270 A superconducting helical thruster in a 25 m long, 2.75 m wide and 2.0 m deep salt-water test tank to achieve 0.61/spl sim/0.68 m/s velocity, the measured driving force is 40/spl sim/45 N. A suggestion to extend this project for another 2 years has been approved. The progress of the project is reported.