Instability of Bingham fluids in Taylor–Dean flow between two concentric cylinders at arbitrary gap spacings

Stability of Bingham fluids is investigated numerically in azimuthal pressure-driven flow between two infinitely long concentric cylinders. An infinitesimal perturbation is introduced to the basic flow and its time evolution is monitored using normal mode linear stability analysis. An eigenvalue problem is obtained which is solved numerically using pseudo-spectral collocation method. Numerical results are obtained for two different cases: (i) the inner cylinder is rotating at constant velocity while the outer cylinder is fixed (i.e., the Taylor–Dean flow) and (ii) both cylinders are fixed (i.e., the Dean flow). The results show that the yield stress always has a stabilizing effect on the Taylor–Dean flow. But, for the Dean flow the effect of the yield stress is predicted to be stabilizing or destabilizing depending on the magnitude of the Bingham number and also the gap size.

► Taylor–Dean instability of Bingham fluids has been studied for the first time at arbitrary gap spacing. ► The yield stress always has a stabilizing effect on the Taylor–Dean flow. ► For the case of Dean flow, the yield stress can have a stabilizing effect (depending on the size of the gap and the magnitude of the yield stress).