Instabilities in Mixed Convection at Moderate and Strong Magnetic Fields

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The proposed project investigates the heat and mass transfer in liquid metals flows through rectangular ducts affected by strong magnetic fields. More specifically, the work explores the hypothesis that, in the conditions of complete turbulence suppression by the magnetic field, thermal convection leads to large-scale coherent secondary structures causing high-amplitude spatial and temporal variations of temperature. These extended structures will alter the transport significantly. The project will advance our understanding of heat and mass transfer in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows of liquid metals and other electrically conducting fluids. Using combination of direct numerical simulations and high-fidelity laboratory experiments with mercury, we plan to investigate convection instabilities and development of secondary structures in the case when the imposed magnetic field is strong and, therefore, expected to change the nature of the flow. Finally, we will seek for the possibilities to control the flow in order to inhibit such instabilities and, therefore, to prevent temperature non-uniformities. Our joint German-Russian project has direct implications for design of cooling and breeding liquid metal blankets for fusion reactors. It is expected that the results of the project will assist the development of test blanket modules for the ITER and DEMO experiments, in particular for the development of dual-coolant and helium-cooled blankets.