Physical analysis and modelization of phenomena in electromagnetic levitation in conical inductor

Levitation melting offers many advantages in metallurgy compared with classical techniques ; the main advantages are cleanness and superheating. Today levitation melting is not a widespread technique because of bad understanding of the physical mechanisms involved. The aim of this paper is to analyse the interaction between the equilibrium shape of the melt and the magnetic field distribution. The configuration is supposed to be axisymmetric and the frequency to be high enough to ensure an electromagnetic skin depth smaller than the size of the levitated sample. In this case the problem to be solved is only concerned with magnetostatics: internal fluid motion does not influence the free surface shape and can be ignored.