Instabilities and spin-up behaviour of a rotating magnetic field driven flow in a rectangular cavity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the flow instabilities and spin-up behavior of a liquid metal in a rectangular cavity driven by a rotating magnetic field, combining numerical simulations and advanced experimental measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dual-plane ultrasound velocimeter and applies Proper Orthogonal Decomposition to analyze flow transitions in RMF-driven liquid metal flows.

Findings

Flow transitions occur at a critical magnetic Taylor number around 1.26×10^5.

Good agreement between numerical predictions and experimental observations.

Identification of main flow modes during transition from stable to unstable regimes.

Abstract

This study presents numerical simulations and experiments considering the flow of an electrically conducting fluid inside a cube driven by a rotating magnetic field (RMF). The investigations are focused on the spin-up, where a liquid metal (GaInSn) is suddenly exposed to an azimuthal body force generated by the RMF, and the subsequent flow development. The numerical simulations rely on a semi-analytical expression for the induced electromagnetic force density in an electrically conducting medium inside a cuboid container with insulating walls. Velocity distributions in two perpendicular planes are measured using a novel dual-plane, two-component ultrasound array Doppler velocimeter (UADV) with continuous data streaming, enabling long term measurements for investigating transient flows. This approach allows to identify the main emerging flow modes during the transition from a stable to unstable flow regimes with exponentially growing velocity oscillations using the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) method. Characteristic frequencies in the oscillating flow regimes are determined in the super critical range above the critical magnetic Taylor number $Ta_c \approx 1.26 \times 10^5$, where the transition from the steady double vortex structure of the secondary flow to an unstable regime with exponentially growing oscillations is detected. The mean flow structures and the temporal evolution of the flow predicted by the numerical simulations and observed in experiments are in very good agreement.