Computational modeling of electrodynamic and transport phenomena in materials processing systems

Abstract

This paper discusses the numerical modeling of coupled electromagnetic and transport (fluid flow and heat and mass transfer) phenomena in materials processing systems under both terrestrial and microgravity conditions. Two types of magnetically induced transport phenomena are considered and both require iterative numerical computations. For the former, the flow is activated through Faraday's law and the computational methodology entails the use of the boundary element method to model the free space region and of the finite element method to model the interior region of the liquid. Computations involve the iterative solution of magnetic fields, fluid flow and surface stress balance when free surface deformation occurs. For the later, the fluid motion is suppressed by an applied DC magnetic field and flow and magnetic fields are coupled so that iterative computational procedure is again required. For this later case, computational costs are substantially reduced by carefully designing the finite element global matrix structure.