Liquid-metal flow in a rectangular duct with a strong non-uniform magnetic field

1984 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 309-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Petrykowski ◽  
John S. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Liquid Metal ◽  
Metal Flow ◽  
Velocity Profiles ◽  
Transverse Magnetic ◽  
Secondary Flows ◽  
Rectangular Duct ◽  
Liquid Metal Flow ◽  
Displacement Thickness ◽  
The Magnetic Field

Liquid-metal flows in rectangular ducts having electrically insulating tops and bottoms and perfectly conducting sides and in the presence of strong, polar, transverse magnetic fields are examined. Solutions are presented for the boundary layers adjacent to the sides that are parallel to the magnetic field. Overshoots in the radial velocity profiles show that the side layers have zero displacement thickness and do not perturb the inviscid core. Very weak secondary flows involve four significant vortices, as reflected in the polar velocity profiles.

scholarly journals Linear Stability Analysis of Liquid Metal Flow in an Insulating Rectangular Duct under External Uniform Magnetic Field

Fluids ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tagawa
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Stability Analysis ◽  
Liquid Metal ◽  
Linear Stability ◽  
Linear Stability Analysis ◽  
Uniform Magnetic Field ◽  
Metal Flow ◽  
Rectangular Duct ◽  
Liquid Metal Flow ◽  
External Uniform Magnetic Field

Linear stability analysis of liquid metal flow driven by a constant pressure gradient in an insulating rectangular duct under an external uniform magnetic field was carried out. In the present analysis, since the Joule heating and induced magnetic field were neglected, the governing equations consisted of the continuity of mass, momentum equation, Ohm’s law, and conservation of electric charge. A set of linearized disturbance equations for the complex amplitude was decomposed into real and imaginary parts and solved numerically with a finite difference method using the highly simplified marker and cell (HSMAC) algorithm on a two-dimensional staggered mesh system. The difficulty of the complex eigenvalue problem was circumvented with a Newton—Raphson method during which its corresponding eigenfunction was simultaneously obtained by using an iterative procedure. The relation among the Reynolds number, the wavenumber, the growth rate, and the angular frequency was successfully obtained for a given value of the Hartmann number as well as for a direction of external uniform magnetic field.

Experimental study on liquid metal free surface flow under magnetic and electric field for nuclear fusion

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Meng ◽  
Z H Wang ◽  
Dengke Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Free Surface ◽  
Liquid Metal ◽  
Electric Field ◽  
Liquid Film ◽  
Metal Flow ◽  
First Wall ◽  
Flowing Liquid ◽  
Liquid Metal Flow ◽  
The Magnetic Field

Abstract In the future application of nuclear fusion, the liquid metal flows are considered to be an attractive option of the first wall of the Tokamak which can effectively remove impurities and improve the confinement of plasma. Moreover, the flowing liquid metal can solve the problem of the corrosion of the solid first wall due to high thermal load and particle discharge. In the magnetic confinement fusion reactor, the liquid metal flow experiences strong magnetic and electric, fields from plasma. In the present paper, an experiment has been conducted to explore the influence of electric and magnetic fields on liquid metal flow. The direction of electric current is perpendicular to that of the magnetic field direction, and thus the Lorentz force is upward or downward. A laser profilometer (LP) based on the laser triangulation technique is used to measure the thickness of the liquid film of Galinstan. The phenomenon of the liquid column from the free surface is observed by the high-speed camera under various flow rates, intensities of magnetic field and electric field. Under a constant external magnetic field, the liquid column appears at the position of the incident current once the external current exceeds a critical value, which is inversely proportional to the magnetic field. The thickness of the flowing liquid film increases with the intensities of magnetic field, electric field, and Reynolds number. The thickness of the liquid film at the incident current position reaches a maximum value when the force is upward. The distribution of liquid metal in the channel presents a parabolic shape with high central and low marginal. Additionally, the splashing, i.e., the detachment of liquid metal is not observed in the present experiment, which suggests a higher critical current for splashing to occur.

scholarly journals Linear stability of magnetohydrodynamic flow in a perfectly conducting rectangular duct

2012 ◽  
Vol 708 ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jānis Priede ◽  
Svetlana Aleksandrova ◽  
Sergei Molokov
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Reynolds Number ◽  
Strong Magnetic Field ◽  
Linear Stability ◽  
Critical Reynolds Number ◽  
Metal Flow ◽  
Transverse Magnetic ◽  
Rectangular Duct ◽  
Instability Modes ◽  
The Magnetic Field

AbstractWe analyse numerically the linear stability of a liquid-metal flow in a rectangular duct with perfectly electrically conducting walls subject to a uniform transverse magnetic field. A non-standard three-dimensional vector stream-function/vorticity formulation is used with a Chebyshev collocation method to solve the eigenvalue problem for small-amplitude perturbations. A relatively weak magnetic field is found to render the flow linearly unstable as two weak jets appear close to the centre of the duct at the Hartmann number $\mathit{Ha}\approx 9. 6. $ In a sufficiently strong magnetic field, the instability following the jets becomes confined in the layers of characteristic thickness $\delta \ensuremath{\sim} {\mathit{Ha}}^{\ensuremath{-} 1/ 2} $ located at the walls parallel to the magnetic field. In this case the instability is determined by $\delta , $ which results in both the critical Reynolds number and wavenumber scaling as ${\ensuremath{\sim} }{\delta }^{\ensuremath{-} 1} . $ Instability modes can have one of the four different symmetry combinations along and across the magnetic field. The most unstable is a pair of modes with an even distribution of vorticity along the magnetic field. These two modes represent strongly non-uniform vortices aligned with the magnetic field, which rotate either in the same or opposite senses across the magnetic field. The former enhance while the latter weaken one another provided that the magnetic field is not too strong or the walls parallel to the field are not too far apart. In a strong magnetic field, when the vortices at the opposite walls are well separated by the core flow, the critical Reynolds number and wavenumber for both of these instability modes are the same: ${\mathit{Re}}_{c} \approx 642{\mathit{Ha}}^{1/ 2} + 8. 9\ensuremath{\times} 1{0}^{3} {\mathit{Ha}}^{\ensuremath{-} 1/ 2} $ and ${k}_{c} \approx 0. 477{\mathit{Ha}}^{1/ 2} . $ The other pair of modes, which differs from the previous one by an odd distribution of vorticity along the magnetic field, is more stable with an approximately four times higher critical Reynolds number.

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