Experiments on the Stability of Taylor-Couette Flow With Different Radial Temperature Gradient

Abstract

The effect of the temperature gradient and the presence of slits in the outer cylinders involved in creating a Taylor-Couette flow was investigated by measuring the velocity field inside the gap simultaneously. The slits were azimuthally located along the inner wall of outer cylinder and the number of slits was 18. The results showed that the buoyant force due to the temperature gradient clearly generated the helical flow when the rotating Reynolds number is small. For the plain model, the transition to turbulent Taylor vortex flow is not affected by the temperature gradient considered in this study. In addition, the transition process of 18-slit model was accelerated due to the slit wall. As the temperature gradient became larger, the critical Reynolds number of the transition process decreased.