Axial Wall Slits Effect on the Helical Flow in the Gap between two Concentric Cylinders

The helical flow regime was investigated by using DPIV when the rotating Reynolds number is small. The wall slits were azimuthally located along the inner wall of outer cylinder and the slits number of each model was 9 and 18, another plain wall model was also studied for comparison purpose. The helical vortex flow regime can be observed in all the three models. The negative temperature gradients determine the direction of the rotation and movement of the helical vortex. But the helical wavy vortex flow can only be found in the plane and 9-slit models. And the result showed that the existence of slit wall accelerated the transition process.