This research was performed in follow-up to the modeling work of Schwartz and Szekely that supported the electromagnetic levitation experiments of the Spacelab IML-2 mission.The purpose of the experiments was to determine the surface tension and viscosity of undercooled metals.A key component of the analytical work is to predict the shape of the levitated droplets in the experiment,in order to achieve correct interpretation of the experimental results and accurate measurement of the thermophysical properties.Recent results from mathematical modeling have compared favorably to actual droplet shapes,although the extent of deformation was underestimated.Areason cited for this discrepancy was the lack of an appropriate turbulence model with which to simulate the flow.The k-e and enhanced viscosity models that were used assumed an effective viscosity that was isotropic througout the droplet.This assumption is typically inaccurate for flows with localized regions of both swirling and rotational Group Theory(RNG) method.The CFD code FLUENT is used to perform the calculations.A direct comparison is made between the results of the k-e and the RNG models,and results from the RNG model are compared with experimental results from the IML-2 mission.
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