A new flow regime in a Taylor–Couette flow

n this Brief Communication, we report a new finding on a Taylor–Couette flow in which the outer cylinder is stationary and the inner cylinder is accelerated linearly from rest to a desired speed. The results show that when the acceleration (dRe/dt) is higher than a critical value of about 2.2 s−1, there exists a new flow regime in which the flow pattern shows remarkable resemblance to regular Taylor vortex flow but is of shorter wavelength. However, when the acceleration is lower than 2.2 s−1, a wavy flow is found to occur for the same Reynolds number range. To our knowledge, this is probably the first time that such a phenomenon has been observed. For completeness, the case of a decelerating cylinder is also investigated, and the results are found to be almost the same.