Turbulent flow between two disks contrarotating at different speeds

This paper describes a combined computational and experimental study of the turbulent flow between two contrarotating disks for -1 less than or equal to Gamma less than or equal to 0 and Re-phi approximate to 1.2 x 10(6), where Gamma is the ratio of the speed of the slower disk to that of the faster one and Re-phi is the rotational Reynolds number. The computations were conducted using an axisymmetric elliptic multigrid solver and a low-Reynolds-number k-epsilon turbulence model. Velocity measurements were made using LDA at nondimensional radius ratios of 0.6 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 0.85. For Gamma = 0, the rotor-stator case, Batchelor-type flow occurs: There is radial outflow and inflow in boundary layers on the rotor and stator, respectively, between which is an inviscid rotating core of fluid where the ra;dial component of velocity is zero and there is an axial flow from stator to rotor. For Gamma = -1, antisymmetric contrarotating disks, Stewartson-type flow occurs with radial outflow it boundary layers on both disks and inflow in the viscid nonrotating core. At intermediate values of Gamma, two cells separated by a streamline that stagnates oil the slower disk are formed. Batchelor-type flow and Stewartson-type flow occur radially outward and inward, respectively, of the stagnation streamline. Agreement between the computed and measured velocities is mainly very good, and no evidence was found of nonaxisymmetric or unsteady flow.