Onset of dynamo action in an axisymmetric flow

A Faraday disk dynamo is a DC generator, producing an emf that is constant in time. It consists of a conducting disk that rotates with a constant angular velocity in the magnetic field, perpendicular to the disk's plane. The rotation of the disk causes a change in magnetic flux, which induces an emf, causing opposite charges to develop on the rim and in the center of the disk. The polarity of the induced emf can be determined by the direction of the magnetic field and the direction of the...

Bernoulli's equation relates the energy conservation in a fluid moving along a streamline. The equation applies to incompressible and inviscid fluids under steady flow. For such a flow, Newton's second law is applied to a small fluid element, which experiences forces due to pressure differences, gravity, and velocity variations. The force balance leads to the following form of Bernoulli's equation:

Bernoulli's equation for flow normal to a streamline explains how pressure varies across curved streamlines due to the outward centrifugal forces induced by the fluid's curvature. The pressure is higher on the inner side of the curve, near the center of curvature, and decreases outward to balance these centrifugal forces.
The pressure difference depends on the fluid's velocity and radius of curvature. The pressure variation is minimal in flows with nearly straight streamlines. However, the...

Fluid flow analysis is critical in many scientific and engineering disciplines, and two principal approaches are used to describe this flow: the Eulerian and Lagrangian methods. These methods offer different perspectives on monitoring and analyzing the motion of fluids, each with distinct advantages depending on the scenario.
The Eulerian method focuses on fixed points in space where fluid properties, such as velocity, pressure, and temperature, are observed as the fluid moves between these...

In fluid mechanics, shear stresses arise from viscosity, which represents a fluid's internal resistance to deformation. For low-viscosity fluids, like water, these stresses are minimal, simplifying flow analysis by allowing the fluid to be treated as inviscid, or frictionless. In an inviscid fluid, shear stresses are absent, leaving only normal stresses, which act perpendicularly to fluid elements. Notably, pressure — defined as the negative of the normal stress — remains uniform across...

Irrotational flow is characterized by fluid motion where particles do not rotate around their axes, resulting in zero vorticity. For a flow to be irrotational, the curl of the velocity field must be zero. This imposes specific conditions on velocity gradients. For instance, to maintain zero rotation about the z-axis, the gradient condition: