A numerical simulation of the appearance of chaos in finite-length Taylor Couette flow

Abstract Taylor-Couette flow, the shear-driven flow between concentric cylinders, exhibits a wide variety of instabilities and modal changes, especially for the case of finite length to gap ratio. The numerical simulations presented here capture many of the experimentally observed features, including the moderately high Reynolds number regime in which temporally aperiodic behavior is seen. The exponential decay of the temporal frequency spectrum of these modes in the simulations indicate such flows possess a low-order chaotic character. In this paper, the spectral collocation methods used in this study are described, select axisymmetric simulations are reviewed, and initial results from three-dimensional unsteady simulations are presented.

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