Elastic Turbulence: An Experimental View on Inertialess Random Flow

Victor Steinberg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

153 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A viscous solvent laminar flow may be strongly modified by the addition of a tiny amount of long polymer molecules, resulting in a chaotic flow called elastic turbulence (ET). ET is attributed to polymer stretching, which generates elastic stress and its back reaction on the flow. Its properties are analogous to those observed in hydrodynamic turbulence, although the formal similarity does not imply a similarity in physical mechanisms underlining these two types of random motion. Here we review the statistical and spectral properties and the spatial structure of the velocity field, the statistical and spectral properties of pressure fluctuations, and scaling of the friction factor of ET in wall-bounded and unbounded flow geometries, as observed in experiments and numerical simulations and described by theory for a wide range of control parameters and polymer concentrations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-58
Number of pages32
JournalAnnual Review of Fluid Mechanics
Volume53
Early online date7 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Jan 2021

Funding

I am particularly grateful to V. Lebedev and M. Chertkov for numerous and fruitful discussions; to G. Falkovich, K. Turitsyn, S. Vergeles, and I. Fouxon for theoretical discussions over the years; and to my longtime collaborators A. Groisman, E. Segre, T. Burghelea, C. Chevallard, S. Gerashchenko, Y. Jun, Y. Liu, E. Afik, and A. Varshney. I am particularly indebted to A. Groisman, with whom I have shared the joy of discovery. This work was partially supported by Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant 882/15 and by United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) grant 2016145.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Condensed Matter Physics

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