Stability of cylindrical Couette flow in the presence of an oscillating axial magnetic field.
The linear stability of cylindrical Couette flow of an electrically conducting fluid in the presence of an axial magnetic field is examined, where the magnetic field has a small oscillatory component imposed on a steady value. The effect of the field modulation on the threshold of instability is studied for different values of gap width, Chandrasekhar number, magnetic Prandtl number, and oscillation frequency. Modulation is found to have a stabilizing effect for low values of the Chandrasekhar number, a destabilizing effect for intermediate values, and again a stabilizing effect for still higher values of the Chandrasekhar number. The effect of modulation is found to be almost independent of the magnetic Prandtl number and the modulation frequency.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India.
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Raju
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Bhattacharyya