Glass production is a time and temperature-dependent process where the residence time distribution and flow conditions of the glass melt within the melting tank play an important role in defining glass quality and production efficiency. Aiming to control the flow conditions and optimize the residence time distribution in glass melting tanks heated directly using electrodes, the possibilities of utilising an externally generated Lorentz force in the glass melt was investigated. Applying Lorentz forces in the glass melt is a new and innovative approach which offers a controllable electromagnetic regulation of the flow pattern in the melt. Lorentz forces in the glass melt are generated when an electrical current imposed by means of bottom electrodes interacts with a magnetic field generated by external coils placed in the insulating material underneath the melting tank. Placing the coils and electrodes at strategic spots called "boosting zone" results in a controllable material-free wall in the glass melt, thus increasing electromagnetic boosting. For such investigations, numerical simulations are highly important for estimating the feasibility and paving the way for practical applications. In this paper the authors simulated and studied flow conditions in the melting tank without and with the externally generated Lorentz forces using the commercial software "Fluent" which was developed to calculate flow and temperature fields. Additionally, the magnetic field calculation was included using the diffusion equations and the so-called user defined scalars. This was how the three dimensional coupled simulation was achieved, since the electrical conductivity and other material properties of glass melts are strongly temperature dependent.
