Experimental Study of Axial Slit Wall Effect on Taylor-Couette Flow

Taylor-Couette flow has been studied extensively and lots of variables which affect the flow instability are being reported. The wall geometry effect of Taylor-Couette flow, however, has been less studied. In this study, we investigated the effect of axial slit of outer cylinder. This kind of configuration can be easily seen in rotating machinery. Particle image velocimetry method was used to measure the velocity fields in longitudinal and latitudinal planes. The index matching method was used to avoid light refraction. The velocity fields between the slit and plain model which has the smooth wall were compared. From the experiments, both models have the same flow mode below Re = 143. The transition from circular Couette flow to plain Taylor vortex flow began at Re = 103, and the next transition to wavy vortex flow occurred at 124. The effect of slit wall appeared when the Reynolds number is larger than Re = 143. Above this Reynolds number, there was no stable mode and plain and wavy Taylor vortex flow randomly appeared.Copyright © 2007 by ASME