The effects of eccentricity on torque and load in Taylor-vortex flow

1978 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.M. Eagles ◽  
J. T. Stuart ◽  
R. C. Diprima

This paper extends two earlier papers in which DiPrima & Stuart calculated first (1972b) the critical Taylor number to order ε2, where the eccentricity ε is proportional to the displacement of the axes of the circular cylinders, and second (1975) the torque and load to order ε associated with nonlinear effects of Taylor vortices. In the latter paper, it was shown that to order ε the torque arising from the Taylor vortices is identical with that for the concentric problem, which was first calculated, by a perturbation method, by Davey (1962). This deficiency is remedied in the present paper, where the calculation is taken to order ε2. It is found that, as ε rises, the torque associated with the Taylor vortices falls slightly when we keep constant the percentage elevation of the Taylor number above the ε-dependent critical value. This result is in accordance with experimental observations by Vohr (1967, 1968). In addition, results of calculations of the pressure field developed by the Taylor-vortex flow in association with the eccentric geometry are presented; this is larger than in the concentric case owing to a Reynolds lubrication effect. Also given are the associated components of the load on the inner cylinder, but only for Taylor numbers close to the critical value.One additional observation by Vohr, for cylinders with a mean ratio of the gap to the inner radius of 0·099, was that the maximum Taylor-vortex strength with ε = 0·475 occurred some 50° downstream of the maximum gap for a 20% elevation of the Taylor number above the critical value. Calculations in the two earlier papers (1972b, 1975) gave 90 and 76°, respectively, for that angle. Note that in the 1975 paper a geometrical correction of order ε was included. Here, with an additional modification of order ε due to the flow, this result is improved to 49° by the extended analysis presented, although the ‘small’ parameters are somewhat outside the range for which perturbation theory is expected to be valid.

1974 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. DiPrima ◽  
J. T. Stuart

At sufficiently high operating speeds in lightly loaded journal bearings the basic laminar flow will be unstable. The instability leads to a new steady secondary motion of ring vortices around the cylinders with a regular periodicity in the axial direction and a strength that depends on the azimuthial position (Taylor vortices). Very recently published work on the basic flow and the stability of the basic flow between eccentric circular cylinders with the inner cylinder rotating is summarized so as to provide a unified description. A procedure for calculating the Taylor-vortex flow is developed, a comparison with observed properties of the flow field is made, and formulas for the load and torque are given.


1979 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Barcilon ◽  
J. Brindley ◽  
M. Lessen ◽  
F. R. Mobbs

We report on a set of turbulent flow experiments of the Taylor type in which the fluid is contained between a rotating inner circular cylinder and a fixed concentric outer cylinder, focusing our attention on very large Taylor number values, i.e. \[ 10^3 \leqslant T/T_c \leqslant 10^5, \] where Tc is the critical value of the Taylor number T for onset of Taylor vortices. At such large values of T, the turbulent vortex flow structure is similar to the one observed when T – Tc is small and this structure is apparently insensitive to further increases in T. These flows are characterized by two widely separated length scales: the scale of the gap width which characterizes the Taylor vortex flow and a much smaller scale which is made visible by streaks in the form of a ‘herring-bone’-like pattern visible at the walls. These are conjectured to be Görtler vortices which arise as a result of centrifugal instability in the wall boundary layers. Ideas of marginal instability by which we postulate that both the Taylor and Görtler vortex structures are marginally unstable on their own scale seem to provide good quantitative agreement between predicted and observed Görtler vortex spacings.


1975 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Diprima ◽  
J. T. Stuart

This paper is concerned with the nonlinear stability of the flow between two long eccentric rotating cylinders. The problem, which is of interest in lubrication technology, is an extension both of the authors’ earlier work on the linear eccentric case and of still earlier work by Davey and others on the nonlinear concentric analysis of Taylor-vortex development. There are four parameters which are assumed small in the analysis; they are the mean clearance ratio, the eccentricity, the amount by which the Taylor number exceeds its critical value; and the Taylor-vortex amplitude. Following the earlier work mentioned above, relation-ships are specified between these parameters in order to develop a satisfactory perturbation scheme. Thus a non-local solution is obtained to the nonlinear stability problem, in which the whole flow field is taken into account.Of some importance in the analysis is the fact that it is necessary to allow for the development of a pressure field substantially bigger than that associated with Taylor vortices in the concentric case, owing to the Reynolds lubrication effect in a viscous fluid moving through a converging passage. I n order to achieve this mathematically, it is necessary to solve the continuity equation to a higher order than is necessary for the momentum equations.It is found that the angular position for maximum vortex activity, which is 90° downstream of the maximum gap in the linear case, can taken on any value between 0 and 90°, depending on the value of the supercritical Taylor number. For a particular experiment of Vohr (1968) acceptable agreement is obtained for this angle (50°), though the ‘small’ parameters are somewhat outside the expected range of perturbation theory. Formulae are obtained for the torque and forces acting on the inner cylinder.


This analysis deals with the occurrence of Coles’ wavy vortices in the flow between two eccentric cylinders when no Taylor vortex flow is present, and where the eccentricity is small and the clearance ratio is very small. This mathematical investigation can be seen as an extension of the previous papers of Di Prima (1963), Roberts (1965), Davey, Di Prima & Stuart (1968) on the concentric problem and the paper of Di Prima & Stuart (19726) which includes eccentricity. An extension to the latter paper is made by the inclusion of the time variable r in the equation for the amplitude B((/),t) of the Taylor vortices, (j) being the azimuthal variable. The results are compared with the observed critical speeds of Vohr (1967) for development of wave instability on Taylor vortices, and are qualitatively similar; they differ in magnitude from experiment, however, probably due to the absence of nonlinear effects.


1984 ◽  
Vol 138 ◽  
pp. 21-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Fasel ◽  
O. Booz

For a wide gap (R1/R2= 0.5) and large aspect ratiosL/d, axisymmetric Taylor-vortex flow has been observed in experiments up to very high supercritical Taylor (or Reynolds) numbers. This axisymmetric Taylor-vortex flow was investigated numerically by solving the Navier–Stokes equations using a very accurate (fourth-order in space) implicit finite-difference method. The high-order accuracy of the numerical method, in combination with large numbers of grid points used in the calculations, yielded accurate and reliable results for large supercritical Taylor numbers of up to 100Tac(or 10Rec). Prior to this study numerical solutions were reported up to only 16Tac. The emphasis of the present paper is placed upon displaying and elaborating the details of the flow field for large supercritical Taylor numbers. The flow field undergoes drastic changes as the Taylor number is increased from just supercritical to 100Tac. Spectral analysis (with respect toz) of the flow variables indicates that the number of harmonics contributing substantially to the total solution increases sharply when the Taylor number is raised. The number of relevant harmonics is already unexpectedly high at moderate supercriticalTa. For larger Taylor numbers, the evolution of a jetlike or shocklike flow structure can be observed. In the axial plane, boundary layers develop along the inner and outer cylinder walls while the flow in the core region of the Taylor cells behaves in an increasingly inviscid manner.


Author(s):  
Vale´rie Lepiller ◽  
Jong-Yeon Hwang ◽  
Arnaud Prigent ◽  
Kyung-Soo Yang ◽  
Innocent Mutabazi

Both experimental and numerical studies have shown that the Taylor vortices are destabilized by a weak radial temperature gradient and transit to spiral vortices with a small inclination. For a large radial temperature gradient, from Taylor vortices emerges a disordered pattern with some windows of spiral vortices. Spatio-temporal characteristics of resulting pattern are presented.


1973 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Burkhalter ◽  
E. L. Koschmieder

Experiments studying steady supercritical Taylor vortex flow have been made using pairs of long cylinders with two different radius ratios, three fluids of different viscosities and three different end boundaries for the fluid column. The emphasis in these experiments is on the determination of the wavelength of the Taylor vortices and the size of the end rings. The wavelength which one measures in a finite cylinder differs from the wavelengths found theoretically for infinitely long cylinders. Provided that the end effects were properly taken into account, the wavelength of singly periodic Taylor vortices in aninfinitely long cylinder was found to remain constant between T/Tc = 1 and T/Tc, ≈ 80 in experiments with radius ratios η = 0·505 and η = 0·727. Further studies of Taylor vortex flow at very high Taylor numbers, where the vortices are either doubly periodic or truly turbulent, showed that the wavelength increases under these conditions. However, the observed wavelengths were no longer unique but distributed statistically around a wavelength larger than the critical wavelength.


Author(s):  
Emna Berrich ◽  
Fethi Aloui ◽  
Jack Legrand

In the simplest and original case of study of the Taylor–Couette TC problems, the fluid is contained between a fixed outer cylinder and a concentric inner cylinder which rotates at constant angular velocity. Much of the works done has been concerned on steady rotating cylinder(s) i.e. rotating cylinders with constant velocity and the various transitions that take place as the cylinder(s) velocity (ies) is (are) steadily increased. On this work, we concentrated our attention in the case in which the inner cylinder velocity is not constant, but oscillates harmonically (in time) clockwise and counter-clockwise while the outer cylinder is maintained fixed. Our aim is to attempt to answer the question if the modulation makes the flow more or less stable with respect to the vortices apparition than in the steady case. If the modulation amplitude is large enough to destabilise the circular Couette flow, two classes of axisymmetric Taylor vortex flow are possible: reversing Taylor Vortex Flow (RTVF) and Non-Reversing Taylor Vortex Flow (NRTVF) (Youd et al., 2003; Lopez and Marques, 2002). Our work presents an experimental investigation of the effect of oscillatory Couette-Taylor flow, i.e. both the oscillation frequency and amplitude on the apparition of RTVF and NRTVF by analysing the instantaneous and local mass transfer and wall shear rates evolutions, i.e. the impact of vortices at wall. The vortices may manifest themselves by the presence of time-oscillations of mass transfer and wall shear rates, this generally corresponds to an instability apparition even for steady rotating cylinder. On laminar CT flow, the time-evolution of wall shear rate is linear. It may be presented as a linear function of the angular velocity, i.e. the evolution is steady even if the angular velocity is not steady. At a “critical” frequency and amplitude, the laminar CT flow is disturbed and Taylor vortices appear. Comparing to a steady velocity case, oscillatory flow accelerate the instability apparition, i.e. the critical Taylor number corresponds to the transition is smaller than that of the steady case. For high oscillation amplitudes of the inner cylinder rotation, the mass transfer time-evolution has a sinusoidal evolution with non equal oscillation amplitudes. If the oscillation amplitude is large enough, it can destabilize the laminar Couette flow, Taylor vortices appears. The vortices direction can be deduced from the sign of the instantaneous wall shear rate time evolution.


Author(s):  
B. J. Kachoyan ◽  
P. J. Blennerhassett

AbstractThe Dean problem of pressure-driven flow between finite-length concentric cylinders is considered. The outer cylinder is at rest and the small-gap approximation is used. In a similar procedure to that of Blennerhassett and Hall [8] in the context of Taylor vortices, special end conditions are imposed in which the ends of the cylinder move with the mean flow, allowing the use of a perturbation analysis from a known basic flow. Difficulties specific to Dean flow (and more generally to non-Taylor-vortex flow) require the use of a parameter α which measures the relative strengths of the velocities due to rotation and the pressure gradient, to trace the solution from Taylor to Dean flow. Asymptotic expansions are derived for axial wavenumbers at a given Taylor number. The calculation of critical Taylor number for a given cylinder height is then carried out. Corresponding stream-function contours clearly show features not evident in infinite flow.


1984 ◽  
Vol 146 ◽  
pp. 65-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip S. Marcus

We use a numerical method that was described in Part 1 (Marcus 1984a) to solve the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equation and boundary conditions that govern Taylor-Couette flow. We compute several stable axisymmetric Taylor-vortex equilibria and several stable non-axisymmetric wavy-vortex flows that correspond to one travelling wave. For each flow we compute the energy, angular momentum, torque, wave speed, energy dissipation rate, enstrophy, and energy and enstrophy spectra. We also plot several 2-dimensional projections of the velocity field. Using the results of the numerical calculations, we conjecture that the travelling waves are a secondary instability caused by the strong radial motion in the outflow boundaries of the Taylor vortices and are not shear instabilities associated with inflection points of the azimuthal flow. We demonstrate numerically that, at the critical Reynolds number where Taylor-vortex flow becomes unstable to wavy-vortex flow, the speed of the travelling wave is equal to the azimuthal angular velocity of the fluid at the centre of the Taylor vortices. For Reynolds numbers larger than the critical value, the travelling waves have their maximum amplitude at the comoving surface, where the comoving surface is defined to be the surface of fluid that has the same azimuthal velocity as the velocity of the travelling wave. We propose a model that explains the numerically discovered fact that both Taylor-vortex flow and the one-travelling-wave flow have exponential energy spectra such that In [E(k)] ∝ k1, where k is the Fourier harmonic number in the axial direction.


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