A steady-state solver for the simulation of Taylor vortices in spherical annular flow Original Research Article

A numerical technique is described by which the solution of the equations of steady axisymmetric flow of a viscous incompressible fluid in any orthogonal system of coordinates can be obtained. In the present analysis the equations of motion and the boundary conditions are approximated by finite differences that are of the second-order accuracy with respect to the grid size. This technique is used for the numerical solution of the equations of steady motion in spherical Couette flow, in order to obtain Taylor vortices symmetric and asymmetric at a prescribed medium and large annular gap and given range of the Reynolds number of the flow. The computed results are compared to results available from previous experimental and theoretical studies.