Convection effects during electrotransport of liquid metals

An extensive series of steady state electrotransport experiments has been carried out on dilute Cd in Hg alloys using the four probe resistivity technique. The effective diffusion coefficient was measured as a function of both capillary radius,a, and of current density,j. Statistical analysis of the data revealed that they were best fit by a simple j2a4 term. The current theoretical models were not nearly as successful in fitting the data either by themselves or in linear combinations. It is concluded that either an unknown mechanism causes the convection or the postulated mechanisms interact to add in some unknown nonlinear combination which produces the j2a4 dependence.