Travelling Taylor vortices in closed systems

Summary Travelling Taylor vortices between conical cylinders and a cone-cylinder combination are described. The flow results from a rotating inner cone and an outer shell at rest. Due to different centrifugal forces on the cone's surface one obtains a three-dimensional laminar basic flow and regions of subcritical and supercritical flows in the annulus. By some specific bifurcation sequences a rich variety of flow patterns occurs. The generated Taylor vortices can be steady or unsteady, toroidal or helical. Depending on different initial and boundary conditions, toroidal or helical vortices travel through a closed system. Furthermore, combinations of steady toroidal and unsteady helical vortices are possible. The influence of the governing parameters is discussed.