The influence of current collectors on Tayler instability and electro-vortex flows in liquid metal batteries

TL;DR

This paper investigates how current collectors influence the Tayler instability and electro-vortex flows in liquid metal batteries, using advanced simulations to understand stability limits and flow behaviors affecting battery scalability.

Contribution

It introduces an enhanced simulation framework with multi-domain support to analyze the effects of boundary conditions on instability and flow phenomena in liquid metal batteries.

Findings

Axial boundary conditions significantly affect the Tayler instability characteristics.

Electro-vortex flows are identified as relevant for battery stability.

Simulation results inform design considerations for scalable liquid metal batteries.

Abstract

The Tayler instability is a kink-type flow instability which occurs when the electrical current through a conducting fluid exceeds a certain critical value. Originally studied in the astrophysical context, the instability was recently shown to be also a limiting factor for the upward scalability of liquid metal batteries. In this paper, we continue our efforts to simulate this instability for liquid metals within the framework of an integro-differential equation approach. The original solver is enhanced by multi-domain support with Dirichlet-Neumann partitioning for the static boundaries. Particular focus is laid on the detailed influence of the axial electrical boundary conditions on the characteristic features of the Tayler instability, and, secondly, on the occurrence of electro-vortex flows and their relevance for liquid metal batteries.