In the cavity between the co-rotating compressor discs in gas turbine engines, the flow is very complex because of the multiple driving forces including the centrifugal buoyancy force, the Coriolis force and the inertial force. Numerical analysis was carried out in a simple rotating cavity with cooling air axial throughflow and a heated shroud. Efforts were focused upon the flow structure and its variations. The results reveal the non-axisymmetrical flow structures with cyclonic and anti-cyclonic circulations, which slip relative to the rotating cavity in the opposite direction (that is, rotate with a slower speed than the cavity) and the patterns remain unchanged. These structures are not unique, and four types with one, two, three, four pairs of circulations are obtained. For any particular set of conditions, the final structure can depend on the path taken: as axial Reynolds number is increased the number of circulation couples increases, and as Grashof number is increased the number of circulation couples decreases. At high Grashof number, the variation of Nu(av) with Gr is consistent with the Rayleigh-Benard convection. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.