Earth's magnetic field is generated by processes in the electrically conducting, liquid outer core, subsumed under the term 'geodynamo'. In the last decades, great effort has been put into the numerical simulation of core dynamics following from the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. However, the numerical simulations are far from Earth's core in terms of several control parameters. Different scaling analyses found simple scaling laws for quantities like heat transport, flow velocity, magnetic field strength and magnetic dissipation time. We use an extensive dataset of 116 numerical dynamo models compiled by Christensen and co-workers to analyse these scalings from a rigorous model selection point of view. Our method of choice is leave-one-out cross-validation which rates models according to their predictive abilities. In contrast to earlier results, we find that diffusive processes are not negligible for the flow velocity and magnetic field strength in the numerical dynamos. Also the scaling of the magnetic dissipation time turns out to be more complex than previously suggested. Assuming that the processes relevant in the numerical models are the same as in Earth's core, we use this scaling to estimate an Ohmic dissipation of 3-8 TW for the core. This appears to be consistent with recent high CMB heat flux scenarios. arXiv:1307.3938v1 [physics.geo-ph]
Shear layers in confined liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow play an important role in geo- and astrophysical bodies as well as in engineering applications. We present an experimental and numerical study of liquid metal MHD flow in a modified cylindrical annulus that is driven by an azimuthal Lorentz force resulting from a forced electric current under an imposed axial magnetic field. Hartmann and Reynolds numbers reach Mmax ≈ 2000 and Remax ≈ 1.3 × 104, respectively, in the steady regime. The peculiarity of our model geometry is the protruding inner disk electrode which gives rise to a free Shercliff layer at its edge. The flow of liquid GaInSn in the experimental device ZUCCHINI (ZUrich Cylindrical CHannel INstability Investigation) is probed with ultrasound Doppler velocimetry. We establish the base flow in ZUCCHINI and study the scaling of velocities and the free Shercliff layer in both experiment and finite element simulations. Experiment and numerics agree well on the mean azimuthal velocity uϕ(r) following the prediction of a large-M theoretical model. The large-M limit, which is equivalent to neglecting inertial effects, appears to be reached for M ≳ 30 in our study. In the numerics, we recover the theoretical scaling of the free Shercliff layer δS ∼ M−1/2 whereas δS appears to be largely independent of M in the experiment.
We present an investigation of the stability of liquid metal flow under the influence of an imposed magnetic field by means of a laboratory experiment as well as a linear stability analysis of the setup using the finite element method. The experimental device ZUrich Cylindrical CHannel INstability Investigation is a modified cylindrical annulus with electrically driven flow of liquid GaInSn operating at Hartmann and Reynolds numbers up to M = 2022 and Re = 2.6 ⋅ 105, respectively. The magnetic field gives rise to a free shear layer at the prominent inner electrode. We identify several flow regimes characterized by the nature of the instabilities. Above a critical current Ic=O(0.1A), the steady flow is destabilized by a Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism at the free shear layer. The instability consists of counterrotating vortices traveling with the mean flow. For low forcing, the vortices are restricted to the free shear layer. Their azimuthal wave number m grows with M and decreases with Re. At Re/M ≈ 25, the instability becomes container-filling and energetically significant. It enhances the radial momentum transport which manifests itself in a broadening of the free shear layer width δS. We propose that this transition may be related to an unstable Hartmann layer. At Re/M2=O(1), an abrupt change is observed in the mean azimuthal velocity 〈uϕ¯〉 and the friction factor F, which we interpret as the transition between an inertialess and an inertial regime.
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