Control of friction pressure losses and heat transfer in turbulent liquid metal flows in magnetic fields

Phenomena related to strongly anisotropic turbulence generated in liquid metal flows exposed to external magnetic fields have been investigated for more than two decades. However, a number of questions related to these phenomena still remain unanswered, from both the experimental and theoretical points of view. Recently a series of studies, performed at the MHD Center of the Ben-Gurion University, demonstrated the possibility of practical application of the above phenomena particularly in the design of lithium blankets of thermonuclear reactors where the liquid metal has to be circulated in the presence of a very strong magnetic field. It was shown that, using special geometrical conditions, it is possible to enhance manifold the heat transfer due to the very strongly anisotropic, almost two-dimensional, large-scale quasi-turbulent disturbances. Such enhancement of heat transfer allows very substantial decrease in the velocity of the liquid metal necessary for transferring a given amount of heat from the active zone of the reactor and hence to decrease the manifold frictional pressure drop. Utilization of the described flow and heat transfer control possibilities can be related not only to thermonuclear fusion reactors but probably also to a number of metallurgical MHD devices, pumps, etc. and in a broader sense - to a variety of high power density devices