Numerical solutions for the liquid-metal flow in a rotating cylinder with a weak transverse magnetic field

This paper treats the steady, three-dimensional, laminar flow of an electrically conducting liquid in a finite-length, insulating cylinder which rotates at a constant angular velocity about its axis. A steady, uniform, weak, transverse magnetic field produces a small deviation from a rigid-body rotation with the cylinder. This deviation consists of an axisymmetric flow, which is very similar to the classical Ekman flow for the spin-up of a cylinder, and a nonaxisymmetric flow. This paper presents numerical results for the nonaxisymmetric flow and for the ratio of the magnitude of the nonaxisymmetric flow to that of the axisymmetric flow for various values of the Reynolds number. (C) 2002 Published by The Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.