Studies of Liquid Metal Flows and Power Losses in Ducts with Moving Conducting Wall, Slanted Magnetic Field, and Applied External Electric Potential
Abstract
Advanced homopolar electrical machinery is being considered for many new applications. This applied research requires the development of mechanisms for transporting high current at low voltages between rotating and stationary members of the machines with minimal losses and maximal operational stability. Thus, liquid metals rather than more conventional brush technology are often used in the sliding electric contact region. Generally, these machines have large external magnetic fields in the region of the current collector, which has a definite effect on the liquid metal by Lorentz force interactions. Thus, to obtain current collector design parameters, one is interested in liquid-metal channel flow problems, with applied external magnetic fields and boundary conditions containing combinations of moving and fixed, conducting, or insulating walls. These boundary conditions then roughly correspond to a rotor, stator, or sidewall of the current collector and the liquid metal to the sliding electric contact. While many publications treat theoretical magnetohydrodynamic channel duct flow, only a very small percentage of these investigations have studied problems with moving conducting walls. Keywords: Current collector; Magnetohydrodynamics; Liquid metal flows; Rectangular channel; Skewed magnetic field; Moving wall.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA203981
Entities
People
- John S. Walker
- Neal A. Sondergaard
- Samuel H. Brown