Numerical study of turbulent magnetohydrodynamic channel flow

Mean flow properties of turbulent magnetohydrodynamic channel flow with electrically insulating channel walls are studied using high-resolution direct numerical simulations. The Lorentz force due to the homogeneous wall-normal magnetic field is computed in the quasi-static approximation. For strong magnetic fields, the mean velocity profile shows a clear three-layer structure consisting of a viscous region near each wall and a plateau in the middle connected by logarithmic layers. This structure reflects the significance of viscous, turbulent, and electromagnetic stresses in the streamwise momentum balance dominating the viscous, logarithmic, and plateau regions, respectively. The width of the logarithmic layers changes with the ratio of Reynolds- and Hartmann numbers. Turbulent stresses typically decay more rapidly away from the walls than predicted by mixing-length models.