The influence of current collectors on Tayler instability and electro-vortex flows in liquid metal batteries

摘要

The Tayler instability is a kink-type flow instability which occurs when theelectrical current through a conducting fluid exceeds a certain critical value.Originally studied in the astrophysical context, the instability was recentlyshown to be also a limiting factor for the upward scalability of liquid metalbatteries. In this paper, we continue our efforts to simulate this instabilityfor liquid metals within the framework of an integro-differential equationapproach. The original solver is enhanced by multi-domain support withDirichlet-Neumann partitioning for the static boundaries. Particular focus islaid on the detailed influence of the axial electrical boundary conditions onthe characteristic features of the Tayler instability, and, secondly, on theoccurrence of electro-vortex flows and their relevance for liquid metalbatteries.