Azimuthal and streamwise disturbances in a fluid layer flowing down a rotating cylinder

Abstract

In this paper an extensive investigation is done of the linear stability of a film falling down a vertical rotating cylinder. Two cases are considered: flow in the outside and flow in the inside of the cylinder. To this end, a system of differential equations which describe the instability is solved numerically with the Runge-Kutta fourth and sixth order methods. We show that in different circumstances the azimuthal disturbances become the most unstable when the rotation is taken into account. Moreover, a splitting of the azimuthal modes appears due to the Coriolis force. In the case of flow in the inside there is a threshold in the centrifugal force above which the-flow is linearly stable. Besides, new results for the nonrotating case are also obtained. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.