Phase-resolved PIV measurements of the flow between a pair of corotating disks in a cylindrical enclosure

This paper presents the measurements of the flow in the space between an enclosed corotating disk pair using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser doppler velocimetry (LDV). LDV gives the time history of velocity for time-domain analysis, while PIV provides the spatial distribution of the instantaneous velocity. A flow visualization technique displaying the concentration distribution of seeding particles was also employed to visualize the flow patterns. Experiments were conducted on the interdisk midplane with a Reynolds number of 5.25×105. Based on the LDV measured rotating frequency of the vortices around the hub, the phase-resolved PIV measurements were achieved, and a rotating reference coordinate system was employed to represent the flow patterns. The phase-resolved measurements reveal that the circumferential flow velocity oscillates periodically in both the inner and outer regions but in opposite trends. Based on the phase averaged data, the contributions of the periodic and random motions to the Reynolds stresses were evaluated, and the spatial distributions of the periodic Reynolds stresses were displayed. It is found that, the local rotation of the fluid induced by the deformation of the inner region contribute to a significant portion of the momentum transport.