MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS SIMULATION OF TAYLOR-COUETTE VORTEX FORMATION

The formation of toroidal Taylor vortices in a fluid contained within the annular region bounded by two concentric cylinders, the inner one of which rotates, has been observed using molecular dynamics simulatio n. The quantitative nature of the vortices has been examined over a ra nge of supercritical Taylor numbers. The Fourier amplitudes of the fun damental radial velocity mode and its low-order harmonics have been an alyzed; despite the microscopic system size their functional dependenc e on the Taylor number is in excellent agreement with theory and exper iment.