Taylor vortices ( also named after Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor ) are vortices formed in rotating Taylor Couette flow when the Taylor number ( \ mathrm { Ta } ) of the flow exceeds a critical value \ mathrm { Ta _ c }.
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Even if the energy associated with each eigenvalue considered separately is decaying exponentially in time ( as predicted by the Orr Sommerfeld analysis for the Couette flow ), the cross terms arising from the non-orthogonality of the eigenvalues can increase transiently.
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Taylor showed that when the angular velocity of the inner cylinder is increased above a certain threshold, Couette flow becomes unstable and a secondary steady state characterized by axisymmetric toroidal vortices, known as "'Taylor vortex "'flow, emerges.
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In the case of a system which is not rotating uniformly, such as the case of cylindrical Couette flow, where the outer cylinder is stationary and the inner cylinder is rotating, inertial forces will often tend to destabilize a system, whereas viscous forces tend to stabilize a system and damp out perturbations and turbulence.
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While the fluid mechanics of the original flow are unsteady when \ mathrm { Ta } > \ mathrm { Ta _ c }, the new flow, called " Taylor Couette flow ", with the Taylor vortices present, is actually steady until the flow reaches a large Reynolds number, at which point the flow transitions to unsteady " wavy vortex " flow, presumably indicating the presence of non-axisymmetric instabilities.
