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Direct numerical simulation of elastic turbulence in the Taylor–Couette flow: transition pathway and mechanistic insight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2022

Jiaxing Song
Affiliation:
Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen 37077, Germany
Nansheng Liu*
Affiliation:
Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China
Xi-Yun Lu
Affiliation:
Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China
Bamin Khomami*
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
*
Email addresses for correspondence: [email protected], [email protected]
Email addresses for correspondence: [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract

Three-dimensional elastic turbulence in Taylor–Couette flows of dilute polymer solutions has been realized and thoroughly investigated via direct numerical simulations. A novel flow transition pathway from elastically dominated turbulence to solitary vortex pairs (or diwhirls) and eventually to elastic turbulence is observed by decreasing the fluid inertia ($Re$) over seven orders of magnitude, i.e. from $Re=1000$ to $0.0001$. The dominant spatio-temporal flow features in the elastic turbulence regime are those of large-scale unsteady diwhirls and small-scale axial and azimuthal travelling waves in the outer and inner halves of the gap, respectively. Moreover, it is conclusively shown that production of turbulent kinetic energy in purely elastic turbulence solely arises due to the stochastic nature of polymer stretch/relaxation. Overall, based on this comprehensive numerical investigation, the differences in the underlying fluid physics that give rise to turbulent fluctuations in elastically dominated and purely elastic turbulence have been delineated.

Type
JFM Papers
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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