Near-wall vortical structures in domains with and without curved surfaces

Taylor-Couette flow is a canonical flow to study Taylor-Gortler (TG) instability or centrifugal instability and the associated vortices. TG instability has been traditionally associated with flow over curved surfaces or geometries. In the computational study, we confirm the presence of TG-like near-wall vortical structures in two lid-driven flow systems, the Vogel-Escudier (VE) and the lid-driven cavity (LDC) flows. The VE flow is generated inside a circular cylinder by a rotating lid (top lid in the present study), while the LDC flow is generated inside a square or rectangular cavity by the linear movement of the lid. We look at the emergence of these vortical structures through reconstructed phase space diagrams and find that the TG-like vortices are seen in the chaotic regimes in both flows. In the VE flow, these vortices are seen when the side-wall boundary layer instability sets in at large Re. The VE flow is observed to go to a chaotic state in a sequence of events from a steady state at low Re. In contrast to VE flows, in the LDC flow with no curved boundaries, TG-like vortices are seen at the emergence of unsteadiness when the flow exhibits a limit cycle. The LDC flow is observed to have transitioned to chaos from the steady state through a periodic oscillatory state. Various aspect ratio cavities are examined in both flows for the presence of TG-like vortices.

Automated summary

Taylor-Couette flow is used to study Taylor-Gortler (TG) instability and associated vortices. Computational study confirms the presence of TG-like near-wall vortical structures in Vogel-Escudier (VE) and lid-driven cavity (LDC) flows. These vortices are observed in chaotic regimes in both flows, with VE flow transitioning from a steady state and LDC flow exhibiting a limit cycle.