The two-sided lid-driven cavity: experiments on stationary and time-dependent flows

The incompressible fluid flow in a rectangular container driven by two facing sidewalls which move steadily in anti-parallel directions is investigated experimentally for Reynolds numbers up to 1200. The moving sidewalls are realized by two rotating cylinders of large radii tightly closing the cavity. The distance between the moving walls relative to the height of the cavity (aspect ratio) is Γ = 1.96. Laser-Doppler and hot-film techniques are employed to measure steady and time-dependent vortex flows. Beyond a first threshold robust, steady, three-dimensional cells bifurcate supercritically out of the basic flow state. Through a further instability the cellular flow becomes unstable to oscillations in the form of standing waves with the same wavelength as the underlying cellular flow. If both sidewalls move with the same velocity (symmetrical driving), the oscillatory instability is found to be tricritical. The dependence on two sidewall Reynolds numbers of the ranges of existence of steady and oscillatory cellular flows is explored. Flow symmetries and quantitative velocity measurements are presented for representative cases.