Events of high polymer activity in drag reducing flows

Abstract

The mechanism of drag reduction in turbulent flows due to polymers has been investigated with help of a direct numerical simulation. In particular, we consider the interaction between turbulent velocity fluctuations and polymers in terms of elastic energy that can be stored in the polymer. To this end all the terms of the elastic energy budget have been computed. The most interesting term is the production of elastic energy due to turbulent fluctuations, because it describes the interaction between polymers and turbulence. Although this term appears to be small in the average, it turns out that it can reach very large values instantaneously and intermittently, and the energy transfer from polymer to turbulence is located in very well defined areas inside the channel. This implies that locally there is a strong interaction between the polymer and the turbulent flow structure, and this strong interaction is mostly seen in areas of high velocity fluctuations. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.