Centrifugal instability of Couette flow over a wavy wall

Linear stability of Couette flow over a wavy wall is considered. It is shown that centrifugal effects may create an instability that leads to the formation of streamwise vortices. The conditions leading to the onset of the instability depend on the amplitude and the wavelength of the waviness and can be expressed in terms of the critical Reynolds number. The global critical conditions describing the minimum critical Reynolds number and the associated wave number of wall waviness required to create the instability for the specified amplitude of the waviness are also given. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.