Rearrangement of liquid metal surface waves by a uniform transverse magnetic field

Magnetohydrodynamic effects on liquid metal film flowing along an inclined plate relating to plasma facing components

“…Furthermore, when the test section is installed in the existing loop, the argon gas supply system and vacuum system work alternately to exclude oxygen. However, it is inevitable that small quantities of gallium oxide are present where the free surface film flows onto the back-plate of the test section, which aids the measurement of film thickness by LP meter [46]. In the present study, we suppose that the quantity of oxides is constant for each experiment, and has little influence on the present experimental results.…”

“…Apart from the top plate and a side visual window, which are made of transparent Poly (methyl methacrylate) PMMA, other parts of the test section are made of stainless steel. Therefore, the liquid metal flows in a channel with electrically conducting wall boundary conditions, which is different from the case shown in our previous publication [46]. The ternary alloy GaInSn, which is in a liquid state at room temperature, is adopted here as a working liquid.…”

“…of liquid metal with a free surface. Since the details of each component of the multi-function loop have been illustrated in the literature [46], here, we focus only on the newly built test section, illustrated schematically in figure 2. The liquid metal film generates from a film generator with small channels (2 mm in width), then flows along the surface of a chute bottom wall (substrate) measuring 800 mm in length and 60 mm in width.…”

“…In relation to measurement methods, we deployed a highspeed camera to visualize the topology of liquid metal free surface in qualitative terms, and the LP to obtain the free surface shape quantitatively. A full description of the measurement methods can be found in reference [46].…”

“…In our previous studies on MHD effects on liquid metal film flow, the laser profilometer (LP) method was adopted to obtain the film thickness at a fixed-line. It was found that, under the influences of a transverse magnetic field, the free surface waves transit to twodimensional waves; specifically, the surface fluctuation along magnetic field lines are strongly suppressed, leaving the surface waves to propagate in the streamwise direction [45][46][47]. Very recently, Lunz et al [48] modeled the flow of a thin liquid metal film, driven by gravity down a conical substrate in the presence of a strong toroidal magnetic field, and identified values for the relevant situations when the flow is stable, which is important guidance in terms of the design of liquid metal PFCs.…”