English

Transition from Ekman flow to Taylor vortex flow in superfluid helium

Condensed Matter 2009-11-10 v1

Abstract

By numerically computing the steady axisymmetric flow of helium II confined inside a finite aspect ratio Couette annulus, we determine the transition from Ekman flow to Taylor vortex flow as a function of temperature and aspect ratio.We find that the low-Reynolds number flow is quite different to that of a classical fluid, particularly at lower temperatures.At high aspect ratio our results confirm the existing linear stability theory of the onset of Taylor vortices, which assumes infinitely long cylinders.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0306566,
  title  = {Transition from Ekman flow to Taylor vortex flow in superfluid helium},
  author = {K. L. Henderson and C. F. Barenghi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0306566},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages, 8 figures; submitted