2002 Volume 2002 Pages 20020013
Taylor vortex flow between two-concentric accelerated cylinders with finite length is investigated numerically. The outer cylinder wall and the upper and lower end walls of the cylinders are stationary, and the inner cylinder begins to rotate with constant accelerations. One of the characters of Taylor vortex flow is its non-uniqueness. The non-uniqueness means that various modes appear, even when the aspect ratio and the Reynolds number are fixed. In this paper, the non-uniqueness of Taylor vortex flow is investigated at wide range of the aspect ratio, Reynolds number and acceleration time of the inner cylinder. To analyze the mode formation processes, the expert system that detects the mode of the flow quantitatively is established. Each mode formation process is not simple but multiple. Some flows develop to final modes via intermediate modes. The dependency of the mode formation processes on the acceleration time of the inner cylinder is complex.
