Velocity measurements in liquid metal flows driven by intermittently or alternately applied rotating magnetic fields using the ultrasonic Doppler method

Model experiments with low melting point liquid metals become an important tool to investigate the flow structure and related transport processes in melt flows being relevant for metallurgical applications. This approach is encouraged by recent developments of appropriate flow measuring techniques in the temperature range until about 300°C. The ultrasound Doppler velocimetry (UDV) which delivers instantaneous profiles of the local velocity along the ultrasonic beam is a very attractive technique to attain experimental data from flows of opaque liquids.
AC magnetic fields are used in industrial practice for melt stirring. The requirements are manifold for miscellaneous metallurgical operations or casting technologies, mainly the magnetic field application should provide an efficient mixing of the melt in order to achieve homogeneous distributions of solute and/or temperature. Here the standard case of electromagnetic stirring by means of a rotating magnetic field (RMF) is considered. Especially, we study the melt flow excited by an application of an intermittently or alternately applied RMF.