Electronic edition ISSN 1574-0579

Direct simulations of MHD instabilities in aluminum reduction cells

D. Munger - A. Vincent

Département de physique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. centre-ville, Montréal (Québec), H3C 3J7, Canada

Abstract
Simulations of magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in aluminum reduction cells are performed using a three-dimensional non-stationary level set method. The magnetic field is kept divergence-free due to a formulation of the MHD equations in terms of the magnetic vector potential. Our simulations show that the metal pad roll becomes unstable at some critical value of the background vertical magnetic field, although the metal depth is also a factor that has a strong influence on the stability of the roll. Finally, we investigate an interfacial vortex instability, causing a central bump in the interface to grow. Figs 7, Refs 20.