Linear stability of radially-heated circular Couette flow with simulated radial gravity (Q885799)

To model geophysical flows, a centro-symmetric body force is required. One possibility is to use a stack of disk magnets contained in a cylinder which exert magnetic forces on a surrounding ferrofluid. In the present work the authors calculate the linear stability of axisymmetric azimuthal flow of a ferrofluid in an annular gap which is driven by the rotation of the inner cylinder containing the magnets. The leading-order body force results from the radial gradient of the magnetic induction and the variation of magnetization of the fluid. The latter is proportional to the density of ferrofluid which varies due to the heating of the inner cylinder. The effects of both the homogeneous natural axial gravity field as well as the radial magnetic force field are taken into account in Boussinesq approximation. To solve the linear stability equations, normal modes in axial and circumferential direction are considered. The resulting eigenvalue problem is solved employing Langford method, by setting the growth rate to zero and integrating the resulting ODEs in radial direction. To satisfy the boundary conditions, two types of shooting methods are used. One method combines the shooting with a Newton method to search for the zero of the determinant associated with the eigenvalue problem. This method may not always converge. Alternatively, a method due to Keller is used in which one homogeneous boundary condition is replaced by an inhomogeneous one. Critical Reynolds number and oscillation frequencies have been computed for various Grashof and Prandtl numbers, as well as for different radial-to-axial-gravity ratios with emphasis on planned laboratory experiments.