The Method Of Numerical Simulation Study On The Taylor-Couette Flow

The complexity of the fluid state between two co-axial cylinders increasedsignificantly with increasing the rotational speed of the inner cylinder, and all of thecomplex fluid states are known as Taylor-Couette flow. The fluid state including laminarTaylor vortex、wavy Taylor vortex、helical Taylor vortex、helical wavy Taylor vortex、random wavy Taylor vortex and so on, which are always the marked focus to theresearchers for a long time. In the process of the fluid flow from a steady laminar flow tothe fully developed turbulence, the Taylor-Couette flow shows a typical nonlinear behavior,so the research of this phenomenon has an immense theoretical meaning. In addition, theTaylor-Couette have many applications in the projects, but the currently research of theengineering application only exists in chemical. Therefore, analyzing the flow patterns andthe heat transfer of the Taylor-Couette flow has a unique importance for the engineeringapplication.In this paper, there is a summary of the numerical simulation methods about how tosimulate the variety of flow patterns and the heat transfer of the Taylor-Couette flow by theFLUENT software, in which analyzing the issues in the numerical simulation such as themesh、the implementation of the boundary conditions、the choice of turbulence model、thetime step、the convergence and so on, and the solutions are given about how to simulate theTaylor-Couette flow successfully.In addition, the fluid state and the heat transfer of the Taylor-Couette flow are allsimulated by the FLUENT software and the simulation results also be analyzed in thisstudy. The numerical simulation study of the complex fluid states is the realization of theseveral flow patterns and the analysis of the simulation results, and the flow patternsincluding the Couette flow、laminar Taylor vortex、wavy Taylor vortex、helical Taylorvortex、helical wavy Taylor vortex、random wavy Taylor vortex、turbulence flow from the initial to the fully developed turbulence. The study of the Taylor-Couette flow’s heattransfer is mainly doing the appropriate study by the numerical simulation method for theexisting experimental results and comparing the results between the numerical simulationand the experiment study.The third part of this study is analyzing the influence of the slot on the inner cylinderto the flow and heat transfer of the Taylor-Couette flow through comparing the flow andheat transfer between two models, which one is smooth on the inner cylinder and the otheris slot on the inner cylinder. The geometric model is constructed with reference to theair-gap between the rotor and stator of the320MW Turbo-generator which is provided bythe Alstone Company in Switzerland. This research plays a foreshadowing role in theprocess of the Taylor-Couette flow applied to the cooling of the air-gap in theTurbo-generator.