Fluid flow and heat transfer in molten metal stirred by a circular inductor

Abstract

A special electromagnetic stirrer which can produce local pulsating flows as well as an overall vortex How in molten metals has been devised and experimentally tested using a simplified model system to evaluate its flow control characteristics and mixing efficiency. The influences of frequency, current and the waveform of current on the flow structure and heat transfer in the liquid In-Ga-Sn metal pool have been investigated. It has been found that the double frequency mode resulted in more effective heat transfer process compared to the single frequency mode, even at lower total input power, without significantly incurring a decrease in the averaged flow velocity level. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.