Modeling of EML in Combined AC/DC Magnetic Fields as the Basis for Microgravity Experiments

This article contains a review of research activity in the University of Greenwich to model the effects of static or DC magnetic fields on the characteristics of EM-levitated melts. The general idea is that the presence of a DC field will damp out the velocities inside a levitated droplet and so lead to more accurate thermophysical property measurements, especially those of viscosity and thermal conductivity that will otherwise be affected by turbulence. The technique is in fact used successfully in terrestrial experiments, and this study sets out to examine its applicability in the case of microgravity. An accurate spectral-collocation numerical scheme is used to couple dynamically the velocity, temperature and magnetic fields, so that internal velocity and liquid envelop changes of a suspended “spherical” droplet can be observed as a function of applied AC and DC fields, with or without gravity