Effect of the magnetic field orientation on the damping of liquid metal free surface waves in the processing of materials

The actual requirements of high-grade materials lead to a constant increase in energy consumption, creating the necessity of new efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. In the past decades, the Electromagnetic Processing of Materials (EPM) has been established as an alternative for the manipulation, monitoring and control of conducting materials such as liquid metals, semiconductors, molten salts, and electrolytes, during the processing stages. Besides the application of nonintrusive methods that allow a convenient handling of the material while keeping it free from contamination of external agents, EPM offers the possibility of a the rational use of energy and the search for environmentally friendly innovation technologies. This paper presents a specific application for the control of liquid metal free surface flows, namely, the damping of surface waves with a uniform magnetic field. The attention is mainly focused on the orientation of the applied magnetic field relative to the free surface, the effects of the depth of the fluid layer, and the surface tension. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.