  We present a novel laboratory setup for studying the fluid dynamics in liquid
metal batteries (LMBs). LMBs are a promising technology suited for grid-scale
energy storage, but flows remain a confounding factor in determining their
viability. Two important drivers of flow are thermal gradients, caused by
internal heating during operation, and electrovortex flow (EVF), induced by
diverging current densities. Our setup explores thermal gradients and
electrovortex flow separately and in combination in a cylindrical layer of
liquid gallium, simulating the behavior in a single layer of an LMB. In this
work, we discuss the design principles underlying our choices of materials,
thermal control, and current control. We also detail our diagnostic tools -
thermocouple measurements for temperature and Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry
(UDV) probes for velocities - and the design principles which go into choosing
their placement on the setup. We also include a discussion of our
post-processing tools for quantifying and visualizing the flow. Finally, we
validate convection and EVF in our setup: we show that scaling relationships
between the nondimensional parameters produced by our data agree well with
theory and previous studies.
