Instability analysis of modulated Taylor vortices

Abstract

This study investigates the instability analysis of modulated Taylor vortices flow by utilising a numerical method. Based on the consideration that the outer cylinder is fixed and the inner cylinder rotates at a non-zero averaged speed under varying modulated amplitudes and frequencies, the flow is converted from one-dimension Couette flow to Taylor vortices. When the modulated amplitude is greater than 1 and the rotation speed of the inner cylinder exceeds the threshold value for one-dimensional flow, the flow will be more stable at intermediate and high frequencies. When the modulated amplitude is sufficiently large and the inner cylinder rotates at medium frequency, subharmonic flow arises.