Simulation of 3D MHD with free surface using Open-Source EOF-Library: levitating liquid metal in an alternating electromagnetic field

J. Venċels - A. Jakoviċs - V. Geża

Laboratory for Mathematical Modelling of Environmental and Technological Processes, University of Latvia, 23 Zellu str., LV-1002 Riga, Latvia

Abstract
Numerical simulation tools for industrial magnetohydrodynamics are rare and in high demand, especially open-source codes that can be run on massively parallel computers. Recently, the finite element multi-physics simulation software Elmer was coupled with the computational fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM using parallel two-way coupler EOF-Library. In order to verify if the software is applicable to magnetohydrodynamic problems involving alternating electromagnetic fields and conducting fluids with a free surface, we perform a 3D numerical simulation of levitating liquid metal in an alternating electromagnetic field and compare our results with the results of similar numerical simulations and experiment. Considering that our simulation formulation has differences from the reference, we got an acceptable agreement for the melt surface shape and velocities. We also reproduced spinning of the melt which was observed in experiment, but yet we are unable to find the source of azimuthal acceleration and flattened faces with vertical edges. Tables 1, Figs 8, Refs 10.