NONLINEAR EFFECTS ON ROTATING-DISK FLOW IN A CYLINDRICAL CASING

The flow due to a finite disk rotating in an incompressible viscous fl uid has been studied. A modified Newton-gradient finite difference sch eme is used to obtain the solution of full Navier-Stokes equations num erically for different disk and cylinder sizes for a wide range of Rey nolds numbers. The introduction of the aspect ratio and the disk-shrou d gap, significantly alters the flow characteristics in the region und er consideration, The frictional torque calculated from the flow data reveals that the contribution due to nonlinear terms is not negligible even at a low Reynolds number. For large Reynolds numbers, the flow s tructure reveals a strong boundary layer character.