Stability of confined swirling flow with and without vortex breakdown

A numerical investigation of steady states, their stability, onset of oscillatory instability, and slightly supercritical unsteady regimes of an axisymmetric swirling flow of a Newtonian incompressible fluid in a closed circular cylinder with a rotating lid is presented for aspect ratio (height/radius) 1 ≤ γ ≤ 3.5. Various criteria for the appearance of vortex breakdown are discussed. It is shown that vortex breakdown takes place in this system not as a result of instability but as a continuous evolution of the stationary meridional flow with increasing Reynolds number. The dependence of the critical Reynolds number Re cr and frequency of oscillations ω cr on the aspect ratio of the cylinder γ is obtained. It is found that the neutral curve Re cr (γ) and the curve ω cr (γ) consist of three successive continuous segments corresponding to different modes of the dominant perturbation. The calculated critical parameters are in good agreement with the available experimental and numerical data for γ < 3. It is shown that the onset of the oscillatory instability does not depend on the existence of a separation bubble in the subcritical steady state. By means of a weakly nonlinear analysis it is shown that the axisymmetric oscillatory instability sets in as a result of a supercritical Hopf bifurcation for each segment of the neutral curve. A weakly nonlinear asymptotic approximation of slightly supercritical flows is carried out. The results of the weakly nonlinear analysis are verified by direct numerical solution of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equation using the finite volume method. The analysis of the supercritical flow field for aspect ratio less than 1.75, for which no steady vortex breakdown is found, shows the existence of an oscillatory vortex breakdown which develops as a result of the oscillatory instability.