Two dimensional fluid flow in the channel of a magnetohydrodynamic pump

This paper deals with the study of an unsteady fluid flow in a MHD pump fed with sinusoidal current at variable frequency for the mercury pumping using an alternate coupling finite element and volume computation with an adaptation of the nodes. By introducing vector potentials (A̅, ψ̅) and the vorticity ξ̅, a system of equations which are of the elliptic type for describing a velocity and pressure distribution in the channel is obtained. In this analysis, the width of the channel is taken into account and the results are compared to those obtained in the limit case when the width is much smaller or much bigger than a characteristic dimension of the channel. In this case, the influence of the frequency on the fluid flow of the MHD pump is investigated.