Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Liquid metal batteries, i.e. batteries in which both electrodes as well as the electrolyte are in the liquid state are usable for grid-scale energy storage and have received considerable attention recently. However, in completely liquid systems, fluid dynamic instabilities have to be considered. We focus here on the current driven Tayler instability and present results of a numerical study using a finite volume code for the calculation of the fluid flow coupled to a Biot-Savart integration to obtain the magnetic field. Growth rates of the instability as well as the magnetic field structure of the saturated instability fit very well to the experimental findings.