Heat and mass transfer in inductive skull melting of glasses and oxides

An unsolved problem in the melting process of glasses and oxides using the inductive skull melting technology was in the past the unknown heat and mass transfer in the melt because temperature and melt flow measurements in the melt are practically impossible due to the high temperatures. The paper describes a new numerical model which is able to simulate the instationary 3D melt flow of glasses and oxides. The numerical model takes into account electromagnetic, convection and Marangoni forces. By this a comprehensive view of the hidden processes in the practical experiments could be obtained. By means of the new numerical model different glass and oxide melting processes were simulated and the results were compared with experimental results. The comparisons show first of all a very good agreement between experimental and numerical results at the melt surfaces. Additionally the numerical results allow to look much deeper inside the melt and show interesting new effects of the heat and mass transfer below the melt surface which were unknown before.