Source-sink flow in a gas centrifuge

We consider steady non-axisymmetric source-sink flow of a perfect gas in a rapidly rotating circular cylinder for the case in which the sources and the sinks are distributed on the top and bottom. We apply a linearized analysis to a small perturbation from the state of rigid-body rotation. We show that the radial pressure gradient plays an important role in the determination of the axisymmetric part of the flow field and that the effects of viscosity and thermal conductivity govern the overall configuration of the non-axisymmetric part. We also show that the transport of gas in the main inner flow is axial and that radial transport is confined to the horizontal boundary layers.