MHD Effect on Heat Transfer in Liquid Metal Free Surface Flow Around a Cylinder

Abstract

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free surface flow with heat transfer problem is extremely complex because the location of the free surface varies continuously and must be found as a part of the solution. In this paper, the MHD heat transfer near a free surface was modeled using passive scalar transport method and the induced-magnetic-field equation was used and solved by scalar transport equation with a penalty factor method for liquid metal flow around a cylinder located in an open channel. To investigate the MHD turbulent effect on heat transfer, an MHD “k-ε” model was also presented here. The simulations were performed at a high Reynolds number with large Hartmann number and the results were used to analyze the magnetic field’s effect on free surface heat transfer and wake, explore the relationship between the MHD turbulent mechanism and the temperature field near the free surface. The conclusions were that the magnetic field could suppress the turbulent intensity and turbulent viscosity, degrade surface heat transfer coefficient and delay the fluid separation.