4. Axisymmetric Configurations

For axisymmetric configurations of rotating disk systems, fluid flow and heat transfer can be analyzed using powerful mathematical methods such as the self-similar solutions. These solutions cover the free rotating disk without any additional forced flow and the rotating disk placed perpendicular to a uniform stream. They represent important limit cases for the more general configuration of an inclined rotating disk, and since there are a lot of reliable data for these cases, they are useful for validating experimental or numerical methods. However, sometimes the analytical treatment is only valid under certain conditions that might not be fulfilled in practical applications, for example, in the case of a stagnation flow onto an orthogonal disk. A closed self-similar solution is only known for an infinite disk, and its application to finite disks in uniform streams still has to be confirmed.