Magnetohydrodynamic flow of liquid-metal in circular pipes for externally heated and non-heated cases

The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study of external magnetic field effect on the steady, laminar, incompressible flow of an electrically conducting liquid-metal fluid in a pipe has been performed. The MHD Module of ANSYS Fluent commercial programme has been used to compute the flow and temperature fields. Na²²K⁷⁸ (sodium potassium) alloy has been used as operating fluid, which is liquid in room temperature. The simulations are performed for two different cases, first a non-heated pipe flow and secondly an externally heated pipe flow. For both cases, three different magnitude uniform external magnetic field, B₀, applied (which are B₀ = 0.5 T, 1.0 T and 1.25 T, T represents Tesla). The results are compared for the MHD effect on the flow variables in two cases separately, but also compared for heated and non-heated cases in order to analyze the temperature effect on MHD flows, as well. It is observed that heating is reducing the magnetic effect on the flow field. While in non-heated cases it is observed that very well-known slowing down effect of MHD on fluid flow, in heated case the velocity field shows a tendency to behave as if it were MHD is not applied. Towards the end of the physical length the heating seems dominating the MHD effect. It is shown that in heated case temperature differences and entropy differences are in tendency to behave as if it were MHD is not applied.