Simulation of the electrovortex flow in a linear approximation under the action of the external magnetic field

Abstract

Electrovortex flows appear in a liquid metal when a non-uniform current interacts with its own magnetic field. They are very important in different electrometallurgical processes connected with melting of metals. We describe the electrovortex flow in a hemispherical container which is connected with experiment which is carried in Joint Institute of High Temperature. Our main aim is to study the influence of the extermal magnetic field, because the experiment shows that even weak Earth magnetic field can change the characteristics of the flow.To solve this problem we formulate a system of equations using Stokes approximation. They are solved with Thoms’ boundary conditions using the time marching method. Our numerical scheme gives us the opportunity to parallelize the computing process. For the calculations we use the CUDA technology. It allows us accelerate the calculation process, even if we use low-power user graphics cards. We hope that our experience can be used to solved another similar problems.