Limiting behaviour of particles in Taylor–Couette flow

Abstract

Negatively buoyant inertial particles are tracked in a steady Taylor vortex background flow with gravity acting along the axis of the cylinders. Particles are found to either fall through the apparatus due to gravity or to be within retention zones. The particles within these retention zones tend towards a limit orbit in the meridional plane. It is found that for particles with density close to that of the background fluid, the size of the retention zone is relatively large with the centre of the limit orbit being close to that of the Taylor vortex. As the particle density increases, the size of the retention zone decreases and the centre of the limit orbit moves away from the centre of the Taylor vortex. The effect of varying the fluid and particle parameters on the retention zone and orbit size is investigated.