Manifestations of drag reduction by polymer additives in decaying, homogeneous, isotropic turbulence.
The existence of drag reduction by polymer additives, well established for wall-bounded turbulent flows, is controversial in homogeneous, isotropic turbulence. To settle this controversy, we carry out a high-resolution direct numerical simulation of decaying, homogeneous, isotropic turbulence with polymer additives. Our study reveals clear manifestations of drag-reduction-type phenomena: On the addition of polymers to the turbulent fluid, we obtain a reduction in the energy-dissipation rate, a significant modification of the fluid energy spectrum especially in the deep-dissipation range, a suppression of small-scale intermittency, and a decrease in small-scale vorticity filaments.
Perlekar
Prasad
P
Centre for Condensed Matter Theory, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India. perlekar@physics.iisc.ernet.in
Mitra
Dhrubaditya
D
Pandit
Rahul
R