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Modeling of turbulent flow in electromagnetically levitated metal droplets

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Abstract

This article details an effort to improve the understanding and prediction of turbulent flow inside a droplet of molten metal levitated in an electromagnetic field. It is shown that the flow field in a test case, a nickel droplet levitated under microgravity conditions, is in the transitional regime between laminar and turbulent flow. Past research efforts have used laminar, enhanced viscosity, and k−ɛ turbulence models to describe the flow. The method highlighted in our study is the renormalization group (RNG) algorithm. We show that an accurate description of the turbulent eddy viscosity μ T is critical in order to obtain realistic velocity fields, and that μ T cannot be uniform in levitated droplets. The RNG method does not impose isotropic length or time scales on the flow field, thus allowing such nonuniform features to be captured. A number of other materials processing applications exhibit similarly complex flow characteristics, such as highly recirculating, transitional, and free surface flows, for which this modeling approach may prove useful.

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Author notes

  1. R. W. Hyers (Graduate Student, Research Scientist)

    Present address: the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA

  2. S. Berry (Graduate Student, Associate Staff Member)

    Present address: the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, 02155, Medford, MA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 02420, Lexington, MA

    S. Berry (Graduate Student, Associate Staff Member)

  2. NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, 35812, Huntsville, AL

    R. W. Hyers (Graduate Student, Research Scientist)

  3. the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, 02155, Medford, MA

    B. Abedian (Associate Professor) & L. M. Racz (Assistant Professor)

Authors
  1. S. Berry
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  2. R. W. Hyers
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  3. B. Abedian
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  4. L. M. Racz
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Berry, S., Hyers, R.W., Abedian, B. et al. Modeling of turbulent flow in electromagnetically levitated metal droplets. Metall Mater Trans B 31, 171–178 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-000-0142-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-000-0142-8

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