The present work considers the turbulent flow inside a high-speed rotor-stator cavity with or without superimposed throughflow. New extensive measurements made at IRPHE by a two-component laser Doppler anemometer technique and by pressure transducers are compared to numerical predictions based on one-point statistical modeling using a low-Reynolds-number second-order full stress transport closure (Reynolds stress model). The advanced second-order model provides good predictions for the mean flow as well as for the turbulent field and so is the adequate level of closure to describe such complex flows. A better insight into the dynamics of such flows is also gained from this study. Indeed the transition between a Batchelor type of flow with two boundary layers separated by a central rotating core and a Stewartson type of flow with only one boundary layer on the rotating disk is characterized in the (r*,Ro) plane, where r* is the dimensionless radial location and Ro a modified Rossby number. The 5∕7 power-law of Poncet et al. [“Turbulent rotating disk with inward throughflow,” J. Fluid Mech. 522, 253 (2005)] describing the mean centripetal flow in a rotor-stator system is extended to different aspect ratios and to the case of centrifugal Batchelor type of flows.

This article reviews the range of flows that may be created within thin cylindrical or annular cavities due to the rotation of one of the confining disks. At low Reynolds numbers, the rotation gives rise to an axisymmetric, radially outward motion near the rotor with a return flow along the stationary disk. As the Reynolds number is raised, this base flow gives way to a shear flow populated by discrete vortices, whether of cylindrical or spiral form, near both the rotating and stationary disks. At Reynolds numbers high enough for turbulent flow to occur, in the twentieth century both experimental and computational studies treated the flow as axisymmetric and steady. Recent research has shown, however, that complex organized structures also persist in the turbulent regime.