Destabilization of the Couette-Taylor flow by modulation of the inner cylinder rotation

The effect of modulation of the inner cylinder rotation on the stability of the Couette-Taylor flow has been investigated experimentally in a system with a fixed outer cylinder. A net destabilization of the flow has been evidenced for all modulation frequencies and amplitudes. Spectral analysis revealed that the pattern and excitation are desynchronized at low modulation frequencies, while they are synchronized at high modulation frequencies. The vortex size increases either with increasing values of the Taylor number or increasing values of the modulation frequency. There is a good agreement between these experimental results and available results from numerical simulations. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.