Magneto convective instabilities driven by internal uniform volumetric heating

C. Mistrangelo - L. Bühler

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Postfach 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract
A linear stability analysis is performed to investigate the onset of convective motions in a flat cavity filled with liquid metal in which a volumetric heat source is distributed uniformly and a horizontal magnetic field is imposed. A quasi-2D mathematical model is derived by integrating the 3D governing equations along the magnetic field direction, which yields a dissipation term in the 2D equations that accounts for 3D viscous effects in thin boundary layers at walls perpendicular to the field. This type of buoyant flow without magnetic field has been investigated by Roberts [1] and the present study extends those results to magnetohydrodynamic conditions. Numerical simulations are performed to support the analytical results and to describe the main convective flow patterns. Figs 7, Refs 13.