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Eddies Induced In Cylindrical Containers By A Rotating End Wall, Christopher Hills

Articles

The flow generated in a viscous liquid contained in a cylindrical geometry by a rotating end wall is considered. Recent numerical and experimental work has established several distinct phases of the motion when fluid inertia plays a significant role. The current paper, however, establishes the nature of the flow in the thus far neglected low Reynolds number regime. Explicitly, by employing biorthogonality relations appropriate to the current geometry, it is shown that a sequence of exponentially decaying eddies extends outward from the rotating end wall. The cellular structure is a manifestation of the dominance of complex eigensolutions to the homogeneous …