Solution of the pancake model for flow in a gas centrifuge by means of a temperature potential

Gas centrifuges were originally developed for the purpose of enriching uran ium in the fissionable isotope U-235 to provide fuel for nuclear power reac tors. Today, a major application is the enrichment of stable isotopes for a variety of purposes for research in physics, materials and medicine. The r e-design of the centrifuges for the new purposes makes good use of computat ional experiments based on models of the internal hows. In this paper, a di fferent formulation of Onsager's pancake model is shown to result in a new sixth-order partial differential equation. This equation is solved by eigen function expansion and finite element method, and the predictions of the fl ow field based on solution by these methods is compared with the eigenfunct ion solution of Onsager's original sixth-order equation. This new formulati on provides the foundation for expanding this theory to three dimensional ( non-axisymmetric) flows. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved .