A contactless inductive velocity reconstruction method for metallic and semiconducting melts

The knowledge of the flow in metallic and semiconducting melts is important for a number of industrial problems. Optical methods cannot be applied due to the opaqueness of those fluids. Ultrasonic methods have problems with wetting and thermal stability when applied in hot metallic melts. Evidently, contactless methods for velocity determination would be highly desirable. In some applications even a coarse knowledge of the flow topology and the direction of the main eddies would be of high value. We study the possibility of velocity reconstruction in electrically conducting fluids from external measurements of different induced magnetic fields. It is shown that for a reliable velocity reconstruction the effect of the electric potential at the fluid boundary on the induced magnetic field should be taken into account.