The turbulent recirculating flow field in a coreless induction furnace. A comparison of theoretical predictions with measurements

A mathematical representation for the electromagnetic force field and the fluid flow field in a coreless induction furnace is presented. The fluid flow field was represented by writing the axisymmetric turbulent Navier-Stokes equation, containing the electromagnetic body force term. The electromagnetic body force field was calculated by using a technique of mutual inductances. The kappa-epsilon model was employed for evaluating the turbulent viscosity and the resultant differential equations were solved numerically. Theoretically predicted velocity fields are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental measurements reported by Hunt and Moore; furthermore, the agreement regarding the turbulent intensities are essentially quantitative. These results indicate that the kappa-epsilon model provides a good engineering representation of the turbulent recirculating flows occurring in induction furnaces. At this stage it is not clear whether the discrepancies between measurements and the predictions, which were not very great in any case, are attributable either to the model or to the measurement techniques employed