Magnetohydrodynamic flow around a sphere

The flow of an incompressible, viscous, electrically conducting fluid past a sphere in an aligned magnetic field is investigated using the finite difference method for Re 100 and 200 and interaction parameter N in the range 0 <= N <= 10 (or 0 <= M <= 100), where M is the Hartmann number defined by M = root 2N Re. The length of the recirculation bubble in the flow reduces monotonically with increasing magnetic field up to N = 1 and starts growing when N >= 2. A nonmonotonic behavior of the boundary layer separation angle is found when N < 1, where the backward movement of the separation angle is observed. For higher values of N, a linear dependence with root N of the pressure drag coefficient, the total drag coefficient and the rear pressure is found. With increasing values of N, a general increase in upstream base pressure and a decrease in downstream base pressure is noted. The features found in this work are in agreement with those of experimental findings. (c) 2005 Published by The Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.