Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Recently various drag reduction techniques were studied numerically and experimentally in many papers. Among others there is the subtopic of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drag reduction where the Lorentz force is used for the purpose of drag reduction in an electrically conducting fluid. In many recently published papers permanent magnets and high electric current densities are used in order to achieve reasonable Lorentz forces. This choice, however, immediately leads to a low efficiency.
We consider a plane channel as the flow configuration. Here, the fully developed turbulent channel flow is homogeneous in the streamwise and spanwise directions, thus, periodic boundary conditions can be applied in these directions. This simplifies the numerical solution of the problem significantly. We present the results of direct numerical simulations of turbulent channel flow drag reduction using electromagnetic forces. The Lorentz force is created by the interaction of a permanent magnetic field and an electric current from electrodes placed on the bottom wall surface. Two various electromagnetic field cases are considered. In the first case an oscillating electric current and a permanent magnetic field create a spanwise oscillating Lorentz force, whereas in the second case a stationary electric current and a permanent magnetic field create a steady streamwise force.
The reason of the low MHD drag reduction efficiency by a spanwise oscillating Lorentz force, as obtained up to now in literature, is explained. The main result of our work is that using a load factor k ~ 1 leads to a significant efficiency improvement for all considered cases. The efficiency increases when the load factor is close to its optimum value. We show that the time oscillating spanwise Lorentz force reduces the skin-friction drag. The full drag is also reduced, the efficiency is increased by 100 times but is still much less than 1. In this case, the skin-friction drag may be strongly reduced at a very small load factor k < 1, but not the full drag.
The application of the streamwise Lorentz force leads to a much more effective drag reduction if we consider the drag as a full force applied to the body. The skin-friction drag increases but the full drag may be reduced to the zero value with a good efficiency.