title: Strong polymer-turbulence interactions in viscoelastic turbulent channel flow.
abstract: This paper is focused on the fundamental mechanism(s) of viscoelastic turbulence that leads to polymer-induced turbulent drag reduction phenomenon. A great challenge in this problem is the computation of viscoelastic turbulent flows, since the understanding of polymer physics is restricted to mechanical models. An effective state-of-the-art numerical method to solve the governing equation for polymers modeled as nonlinear springs, without using any artificial assumptions as usual, was implemented here on a three-dimensional channel flow geometry. The capability of this algorithm to capture the strong polymer-turbulence dynamical interactions is depicted on the results, which are much closer qualitatively to experimental observations. This allowed a more detailed study of the polymer-turbulence interactions, which yields an enhanced picture on a mechanism resulting from the polymer-turbulence energy transfers.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom. vassilios.dallas04@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dallas
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Vassilicos
authors.forename: G F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Hewitt