Berkeley Fluids Seminar

Monday, Febuary 13, 2017

3110 Etcheverry Hall, 12:30-13:30

Dr. B. Emek Abali (Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley)

Magnetohydrodynamics in Metal Smelting

Abstract: Aluminum is an active metal such that it needs to be extracted from the ore by using electrolysis. In the so-called Hall--Heroult process, the electrolyte is conducting a high electric current, inducing a magnetic flux, thus, producing a body force---electromagnetic supply term. Since the electrolyte is a viscous fluid, this supply term alters the velocity. In order to simulate such a process, we need governing equations in the hydrodynamics of a viscous conducting fluid.

Pressure, velocity, temperature, and electromagnetic potentials are the main variables to be computed. In this talk, the governing equations are motivated by starting from the balance equations and closing them with the help of constitutive equations. We arrive at nonlinear and coupled partial differential equations in space and time. A simplified Hall--Heroult process is simulated by solving these equations with finite element method in space and finite difference method in time, with the help of open-source codes developed under the FEniCS project.

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Acknowledgments

Prof. Graham Fleming (Vice Chancellor for Research, UC Berkeley)

Prof. Eliot Quataert on behalf of The Theoretical Astrophysics Center and the Astronomy Department (UC Berkeley)

Prof. Philip S. Marcus on behalf of the Mechanical Engineering Department (UC Berkeley)

Prof. Michael Manga (Earth and Planetary Science, UC Berkeley)

Prof. Evan Variano (Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley)