Numerical investigation of injection-induced electro-convection in a dielectric liquid between two eccentric cylinders

Numerical analysis of the 2D radial and azimuth electro-convection (EC) flow of dielectric liquid between two eccentric cylindrical electrodes driven by unipolar injection of ions is presented. The finite volume method is used to resolve the spatiotemporal distributions of the flow field, electric field, and charge density. The flow instability is studied in various scenarios where the radius ratio Γ = R_i/R_o ranges between 0.1 and 0.7 and the eccentricity η between 0.1 and 0.5. The bifurcation of the flow patterns depends on the electric Rayleigh number T, a ratio of the electric force to viscous force, and the two geometric parameters Γ and η. For an increasing T, the EC system develops from a weak steady convective state to chaos via different intermediate states experiencing pitchfork and Hopf bifurcations. The influence of Γ and η on the bifurcation behavior is also investigated. When Γ lies between 0.1 and 0.3, a novel periodic oscillation of the flow patterns has been observed.