Some metals are in liquid form, the prime example being mercury. But there are also enormous quantities of liquid metal in the Earth's core, where temperatures are so high that part of the iron is molten and undergoes complex flows. A team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now simulated a similar process in the laboratory and made a surprising discovery: Under certain circumstances, the flow of liquid metal is far more turbulent than expected—and this has a significant impact on heat transport. The research is published in Physical Review Letters.
