LOWEST STABILITY BOUNDARY ON FLOW OF CONCENTRIC ROTATING CYLINDERS

Abstract

In this study, we numerically investigate the lowest instability boundary of nonaxisymmetric Taylor vortex flow (TVF) for different axial wavenumbers. The variation in the axial wavenumber of a supercritical TVF can affect the instability of the flow, because the wavelength of a Taylor vortex is constant only when the flow is axisymmetrical. When the nonaxisymmetric TVF is transformed to a wavy vortex flow (WVF), the instability boundary is changed with the variation in the axial wavenumber. We carry out an instability analysis of the nonaxisymmetric TVF between two concentric rotating cylinders, which have a radius ratio of 0.88.