Taylor-Couette flow is the flow between coaxial rotating cylinders. Its simplest steady homogeneous purely azimuthal viscous state has steady circular Couette profile . Stability of that base state depends on rotation rates, geometry and viscosity; the inviscid Rayleigh centrifugal stability criterion addresses axisymmetric centrifugal disturbances, not every viscous instability.
For a homogeneous Newtonian fluid with constant kinematic viscosity, a steady axisymmetric purely azimuthal flow obeys . Writing gives , so . A domain containing the rotation axis requires for regularity; rotating walls in an annulus can sustain . An arbitrary time-dependent profile instead evolves by within this ansatz.
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Taylor–Couette flow refers to the flow of a viscous fluid that occurs between two concentric cylinders, where one cylinder is rotating while the other is stationary or rotating at a different rate. This type of flow is named after Geoffrey Taylor and Henri Couette, who studied the behavior of fluids in this configuration. ### Key Characteristics of Taylor–Couette Flow: 1. **Geometry**: The system consists of two coaxial cylinders with a gap filled with a fluid.