A NUMERICAL PROCEDURE FOR PREDICTING MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS OF A SPHERICAL TAYLOR-COUETTE FLOW

A new numerical procedure for predicting multiple solutions of Taylor vortices in a spherical gap is presented. The steady incompressible Na vier-Stokes equations in primitive variables are solved by a finite-di fference method using a matrix preconditioning technique. Routes leadi ng to multiple flow states are designed heuristically by imposing symm etric properties. Both symmetric and asymmetric solutions can be predi cted in a deterministic way. The current procedure gives very fast con vergence rate to the desired flow modes. This procedure provides an al ternative way of finding all possible stable steady axisymmetric flow modes.