Experimental investigation of rotating magnetic field driven flow by highly sensitive potential probe measurements

Electric potential difference probes (PDP) are mostly applied on laboratory scale to measure local velocities in electrically conducting media. Their principle of operation is based on Ohms law. In the absence of electric currents, and provided a proper orthogonal arrangement, the voltage drop measured between the two electrodes is proportional to the fluids velocity. The measuring magnetic field may be applied globally or by a small permanent magnet at the very tip of the Sensor (VIVES--probe). A typical probe as described in the original work has an electrode spacing of 5 mm while using relatively large CoSm magnets. Because the electrodes are usually mounted on the side of the magnet where the field is weaker, the authors were limited to measure velocities down to 1 cm/s at U =1 mV. They specified a sensitivity of 1 mm/s.

Along with progress in analog electronics, results have recently been published by (GELFGAT) who reported on an increased sensitivity of almost an order of magnitude even for a smaller probe. As stated by the the authors, all measurements were conducted at least five times comprising 200 readings, each. From this averaging it becomes obvious that turbulence measurements have not been possible. The subject of this investigation was the flow driven by a rotating magnetic field (RMF), which may be characterised by the aspect ratio and the magnetic Taylor number.

In the present paper, it is described how the applicable range of PDPs regarding sensitivity can be increased further by about two orders of magnitude. An extremely low-noise preamplifier served as a basis of a multistage measuring chain consisting of another two amplifiers and steep
Butterworth filters. For the differential signal processing required for such small voltages as a few nanovolt it was vital to provide a proper common mode rejection throughout the whole instrumental chain. Since acquisition of velocity fluctuations does not allow any averaging or even the use of integrating amplifiers, potential sources of statistical errors had to be avoided. In particular, the electromagnetic noise was countered by a sophisticated wiring scheme. Systematic errors such as thermoelectric currents are detrimental to the measurement of very small mean velocities. Meticulously avoiding both temperature differences and gradients of Seebeck coefficients, it was possible to reduce thermoelectrical voltages below the velocity signal level.

RMF-driven flows comprise a secondary recirculation in the meridional plane. According to theory, the change-over from a Stokes regime to a laminar boundary one of the primary swirl takes place at a Taylor number of approx. 1000, accompanied by a change of the linear scaling (velocity versus Taylor number) to a power 2/3 characteristic. A sensitivity of 0.01 mm/s permitted to safely determine mean velocities for Taylor numbers commencing with 31.

Besides sensitivity and accuracy, measurements of turbulent velocity fluctuations put a severe
restriction on the size of the sensor in order to resolve all scales of potentially significant vortices. The high sensitivity described above was achieved substantially by state of the art analog instrumentation while the dimensions of the probe were quite small. Having an induction
of 75 mT at the tips of the electrodes, their spacing of 1 mm delivered a signal of 180 nV per cm/s, only. Nevertheless, the performance of the measuring chain allowed for the acquisition of
velocity fluctuations even in the transitional regime slightly above the critical Taylor number. The wavenumber spectra calculated via Taylors hypothesis were well resolved up to the end of the inertial range and showed a steep decrease with an exponent less than 4.