The Effect of Taylor Vortex Flow on the Radial Forces in an Annulus Having Variable Eccentricity and Axial Flow

1978 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. R. Coney ◽  
J. Atkinson

Results are presented in dimensionless form as obtained in an experimental study of the resultant radial force variation in an eccentric annulus formed by a stationary outer cylinder and a rotating inner cylinder, through which an axial flow of oil may be pumped. Two eccentricity ratios, 0.5 and 0.9, and three axial Reynolds numbers for the flow of the fluid in the annulus, 0, 25, and 50, are considered. It is shown that the onset of Taylor vortex flow has a marked effect on the magnitude and direction of the resultant radial force. The resultant forces and attitude angles are compared with those derived from Sommerfeld’s journal bearing theory. Comparisons are also made between critical Taylor numbers for the present investigation and those available in the literature.

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlton Campbell ◽  
Michael G. Olsen ◽  
R. Dennis Vigil

Optical-based experiments were carried out using the immiscible pair of liquids hexane and water in a vertically oriented Taylor–Couette reactor operated in a semibatch mode. The dispersed droplet phase (hexane) was continually fed and removed from the reactor in a closed loop setup. The continuous water phase did not enter or exit the annular gap. Four distinct flow patterns were observed including (1) a pseudo-homogenous dispersion, (2) a weakly banded regime, (3) a horizontally banded dispersion, and (4) a helical flow regime. These flow patterns can be organized into a two-dimensional regime map using the azimuthal and axial Reynolds numbers as axes. In addition, the dispersed phase holdup was found to increase monotonically with both the azimuthal and axial Reynolds numbers. The experimental observations can be explained in the context of a competition between the buoyancy-driven axial flow of hexane droplets and the wall-driven vortex flow of the continuous water phase.


1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 397-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Sorour ◽  
J. E. R. Coney

The hydrodynamic stability of the flow in an annular gap, formed by a stationary outer cylinder and a rotatable inner cylinder, through which an axial flow of air can be imposed, is studied experimentally. Two annulus radius ratios of 0.8 and 0.955 are considered, representing wide- and narrow-gap conditions, respectively. It is shown that, when a large, axial pressure gradient is superimposed on the tangential flow induced by the rotation of the inner cylinder, the characteristics of the flow at criticality change significantly from those at zero and low axial flows, the axial length and width of the resultant spiral vortex departing greatly from the known dimensions of a Taylor vortex cell at zero axial flow. Also, the drift velocity of the spiral vortex is found to vary with the axial flow. Axial Reynolds numbers, Rea, of up to 700 are considered.


Author(s):  
H. Furukawa ◽  
M. Hanaki ◽  
T. Watanabe

In concentrically rotating double cylinders consisting of a stationary outer cylinder and a rotating inner cylinder, Taylor vortex flow appears. Taylor vortex flow occurs in journal bearings, various fluid machineries, containers for chemical reaction, and other rotating components. Therefore, the analysis of the flow structure of Taylor vortex flow is highly effective for its control. The main parameters that determine the modes of Taylor vortex flow of a finite length are the aspect ratio Γ, Reynolds number Re. Γ is defined as the ratio of the cylinder length to the gap length between cylinders, and Re is determined on the basis of the angular speed of the inner cylinder. Γ was set to be 3.2, 4.8 and 6.8, and Re to be values in the range from 100 to 1000 at intervals of 100. Thus far, a large number of studies on Taylor vortex flow have been carried out; however, the effects of the differences in initial conditions have not yet been sufficiently clarified. In this study, we changed the initial flow field between the inner and outer cylinders in a numerical analysis, and examined the resulting changes in the mode formation and bifurcation processes. In this study, the initial speed distribution factor α was defined to be a function of the initial flow field and set to be 1.0, 0.999, 0.9 and 0.8 for the calculation. As a result, a difference was observed in the final mode depending on the difference in α for each Γ. From this finding, non-uniqueness, which is a major characteristic of Taylor vortex flow, was confirmed. However, no regularities regarding the difference in mode formation were found and the tendency of the mode formation process was not specified. Moreover, the processes of developing the vortex resulting in different final modes were monitored over time by visual observation. Similar flow behaviors were initially observed after the start of the calculation. Then, a bifurcation point, at which the flow changed to a mode depending on α, was observed, and finally the flow became steady. In addition, there was also a difference in the time taken for the flow to reach the steady state. These findings are based on only visual observation. Accordingly, a more detailed analysis at each lattice point and a comparison of physical quantities, such as kinetic energy and enstrophy, will be our future tasks.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Wang ◽  
C. Shu ◽  
Y. T. Chew

Abstract In this study, the GDQ method was used to simulate a specific flow regime, Taylor vortex flow, of the motion of fluids between two concentric cylinders with rotating inner cylinder and stationary outer cylinder. An approach combining the SIMPLE strategy and GDQ discretization based on non-staggered mesh was proposed to solve the time-dependent, three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variable form. The numerical solution obtained has the accuracy of second-order in temporal discretization and high-order in spatial discretization. Also, this numerical code may allow the direct numerical simulations for the various regimes of Couette-Taylor flow problem. The performance of this approach was studied through a test case of Taylor vortex flow. The reported numerical results were compared with those from others. For this approach, accurate numerical results can be obtained by using fewer grid points compared with low-order methods. As a consequence, the computational effort can be greatly reduced.


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.


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