Convection and electrovortex flow in liquid metal batteries

We study thermal convection and electrovortex flow (EVF) in series of liquid gallium laboratory experiments. These two forces notably interact in liquid metal batteries (LMBs), a promising technology suited for grid-scale energy storage: convection occurs due to the presence of internal heating while EVF is driven by diverging current densities. Though these forces have potential to both help and hinder the batteries’ operation, flow structures and scaling properties in this context remain largely unknown. To this end, we present a suite of velocity measurements which reveal the dominant flow modes and typical flow speeds over broad ranges of convective forcing, EVF forcing, and container shape. These data are compared to predictions from both the EVF and convection literature.