EFFECT OF RADIAL TEMPERATURE-GRADIENT ON THE STABILITY OF FLOW IN A CURVED CHANNEL

The stability of the Dean problem in the presence of a radial temperat ure gradient is studied in the narrow-gap case. A finite-difference me thod is used to solve an eigenvalue problem, and critical values of th e parameters ii and a are given, where a is a wave number and Lambda i s a parameter determining the onset of instability. The parameter M, w hich depends upon (T-2 - T-1), where T-1 is the temperature of the inn er cylinder and T-2 is that of the outer cylinder, governs the onset o f instability in such a way that an increase in (+M) tends to destabil ize the flow, whereas an increase in (-M) tends to stabilize the flow. The cells and the maximum value of the radial velocity perturbation a re found to move towards a cylinder with lower temperature when M > 0.