Electronic edition ISSN 1574-0579

Control of free-surface instabilities during electromagnetic shaping of liquid metals

Ch. Karcher - V. Minchenya

Institute of Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics, Ilmenau University of Technology PO Box 10 05 65, D-98684 Ilmenau, Germany

Abstract
The present paper deals with the control and the damping of electromagnetically induced instabilities of free surfaces of liquid metals. Such instabilities occur under the effects of externally applied high-frequency magnetic fields. As a model configuration, we consider a liquid metal drop subject to a high-frequency magnetic field. The control is managed by externally applying static magnetic fields that are known to damp fluid motion in electrically conducting liquids. Furthermore, we present a linear stability analysis that shows that the growth rates of surface instabilities are significantly reduced by the static magnetic field. Figs 7, Refs 11.