Numerical modeling of the travelling magnetic field stirrer for liquid lithium

E. Shvydkiy¹ - V. Zaharov² - K. Bolotin¹ - I. Smolyanov¹ - S. Sarapulov¹

¹ Ural Power Engineering Institute, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia
² Institute of High Temperature Electrochemistry, UB RAS, Yekaterinburg, Russia e-Mail: e.l.shvydky@urfu.ru

Abstract
The thermally activated chemical source of electric energy is one of the alternative sources. Anodes for such batteries are made of lithium-boron composite. The use of electromagnetic stirring in the technology of production of such material makes it possible to obtain a good quality distribution of boron powder in a lithium melt. As the source of the electromagnetic field two, inductors of travelling magnetic field (TMF) are used. The TMF inductor system allows to generate different flow patterns as one-, two-vortex or more vortex tricky flow structures. The mass transfer in the melt is computed using a three-dimensional k-ω SST turbulence model. A 3D electromagnetic model was used for a Lorenz force density computation. Coupling of the proposed numerical models was performed by means of COMSOL Multiphysics. Tables 1, Figs 7, Refs 14.