3D-NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE EFFECT OF RADIAL GAP ON THE STABILITY OF TAYLOR-COUETTE FLOW

We study numerically the effect of the radial gap on the onset of Taylor vortices in Taylor-Couette flow system. The inner cylinder is rotating and the outer is at rest. We interested in the appearance of Taylor vortices for a varied radius of the inner and the outer cylinders while making sure to keep a constant annulus between the cylinders in the aim to examine the influence of centrifugal force on the stability of the flow. The obtained results indicate that the onset of Taylor vortices is delayed when the radial gap is increasing