2003/04/24 by Roberto Benzi, Elisabetta De Angelis, Rama Govindarajan +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.68.016308
arxiv created 2003/04/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Recent direct numerical simulations of the FENE-P model of non-Newtonian hydrodynamics revealed that the phenomenon of drag reduction by polymer additives exists (albeit in reduced form) also in homogeneous turbulence. We introduce here a simple shell model for homogeneous viscoelastic flows that recaptures the essential observations of the full simulations. The simplicity of the shell model allows us to offer a transparent explanation of the main observations. It is shown that the mechanism for drag reduction operates mainly on the large scales. Understanding the mechanism allows us to predict how the amount of drag reduction depends of the various parameters in the model. The main conclusion is that drag reduction is not a universal phenomenon, it peaks in a window of parameters like Reynolds number and the relaxation rate of the polymer.