Elongational flow effects on the vortex growth out of Couette flow in ferrofluids

The growth behavior of stationary axisymmetric vortices and of oscillatory, nonaxisymmetric spiral vortices in Taylor-Couette flow of a ferrofluid in between differentially rotating cylinders is analyzed using a numerical linear stability analysis. The investigation is done as a function of the inner and outer cylinder's rotation rates, the axial wave number of the vortex flows, and the magnitude of an applied homogeneous axial magnetic field. In particular, the consequences of incorporating elongational flow effects in the magnetization balance equation on the marginal control parameters that separate growth from decay behavior are determined. That is done for several values of the transport coefficient that measures the strength of these effects. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.87.053010