The forced flow due to heating of a rotating liquid

Abstract

Abstract An investigation is made of the forced liquid motion in a rotating cylindrical vessel with a horizontal base when a temperature difference exists between the outer and inner cylindrical boundaries of the liquid. It has been observed experimentally that at critical values of a certain non-dimensional parameter, known as the Rossby number, the flow patterns change abruptly in character. The present investigation derives a stability criterion which agrees qualitatively with the experimental results and also gives reasonable quantitative results. In the derivation of this result it is shown that there exists a relation between the mean vertical temperature gradient, the mean horizontal temperature gradient and the angular velocity of rotation of the system.