Optimal control of growth of instabilities in Taylor-Couette flow

Abstract

The present work aims to achieve optimal control of instabilities in a standard Taylor-Couette flow. The motivation of the present study is to reduce the disturbance growth and delay the transition process to turbulence. We numerically employ control using a stability modifier, namely, wall transpiration. In the non-modal stability framework, we form a state-space model employing control actuation by means of periodic suction/blowing of fluid from the walls. The study is conducted for two cases of flow rotations: (i) counter-rotating cylinders and (ii) the stationary outer cylinder with inner cylinder rotating. The parametric study was performed with varying radii ratios, Reynolds numbers (Re), axial (α), and azimuthal (n) wavenumbers. The time evolution of governing equation is written in terms of perturbation velocities in radial (r) and azimuthal (θ) directions. The optimal feedback control is obtained using a linear quadratic regulator controller and feed backed to the system to reduce the maximum optimal growth of the instabilities in the flow. The perturbation kinetic energy is taken as the measure of the amplification of disturbances and used as the cost function to be minimized. We use Chebyshev spectral collocation method to discretize the equations and variational method to calculate the optimal growth. We studied four different parametric cases of radii ratios (𝜂=𝑟1𝑟2= 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75), with angular velocity (𝛺2𝛺1) ratio fixed as 𝜇=-1 and μ = 0. We choose the subcritical wavenumbers that led to a maximum transient energy growth corresponding to a Reynolds number ≈ 0.65 times the critical Reynolds number for the case of counter-rotation. For the case of the stationary outer cylinder, we showed the effect of the control in the modal analysis framework. The presented control technique resulted in a maximum of 72% reduction in the growth rate and the typical growth of perturbation energy.