On the universality of the velocity profiles of a turbulent liquid flow in an axially rotating pipe

Abstract

If a fluid enters an axially rotating pipe, it receives a tangential component of velocity from the moving wall, and the flow pattern change according to the rotational speed. A flow relaminarization is set up by an increase in the rotational speed of the pipe. It will be shown that the tangential- and the axial velocity distribution adopt a quite universal shape in the case of fully developed flow for a fixed value of a new defined rotation parameter. By taking into account the universal character of the velocity profiles, a formula is derived for describing the velocity distribution in an axially rotating pipe. The resulting velocity profiles are compared with measurements of Reich [10] and generally good agreement is found.