Flow Past a Right Circular Cylinder in a Rotating Frame

Abstract

The flow of a homogeneous incompressible fluid past a right circular cylinder in a rotating frame is considered; the axis of the cylinder is taken parallel to the axis of rotation while the cylinder is bounded above and below by two infinite parallel flat plates. A series of experiments are presented which qualitatively describe the flow for an aspect ratio of 1.0 and Rossby and Ekman number ranges of (10)−2 < Ro < 1.0 and (10)−4 < E < (10)−3 , respectively. The flow regimes differ significantly from those occurring in nonrotating systems.