The effect of finite-conductvity Hartmann walls on the linear stability of Hunt's flow

Abstract

We analyse numerically the linear stability of the fully developed liquid metal flow in a square duct with insulating side walls and thin electrically conducting horizontal walls with the wall conductance ratio $c=0.01\cdots 1$ subject to a vertical magnetic field with the Hartmann numbers up to $Ha=10^4.$ In a sufficiently strong magnetic field, the flow consists of two jets at the side walls walls and a near-stagnant core with the relative velocity $\sim (cHa{)}^{-1}.$ We find that for $Ha\gtrsim 300,$ the effect of wall conductivity on the stability of the flow is mainly determined by the effective Hartmann wall conductance ratio $cHa.$ For $c\ll 1,$ the increase of the magnetic field or that of the wall conductivity has a destabilizing effect on the flow. Maximal destabilization of the flow occurs at $Ha\approx 30/c.$ In a stronger magnetic field with $cHa\gtrsim 30,$ the destabilizing effect vanishes and the asymptotic results of Priede et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 649, 115, 2010] for the ideal Hunt's flow with perfectly conducting Hartmann walls are recovered.

11 pages, 6 figures, (minor revision, to appear in J Fluid Mech). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1510.09222