Growth of Taylor vortices: A molecular dynamics study

Molecular dynamics methods have been used in a quantitative study of the growth and decay of Taylor vortices in a fluid confined between concentric cylinders when the rotation of the inner cylinder is instantaneously started or stopped. Analysis of the temporal evolution of the vortex flow fields shows that the behavior of this microscopic system agrees with experiment. In order to make the analysis entirely self-contained, torque measurements have been used to determine the effective viscosity of the fluid.