Colloquium

Electromagnetically Driven Flows

E. Yariv
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Higgins 310, 4 pm

When an insulating particle is placed within a conducting liquid domain which is exposed to uniformly-applied electric and magnetic fields, a rotational Lorentz force density distribution is generated, thereby animating liquid flow. In this talk I will describe a series of theoretical investigations of this phenomenon.

I will start my talk by describing the Stokes equations which govern the motion of viscous fluids, focusing upon their symmetry properties. I will then discuss flows driven by Lorentz force distribution, starting with the simplest case of spherical particles and following by more complicated non-isotropic configurations. These are analyzed by singular perturbation techniques such as slender-body theory and successive reflections.