Self-sustaining cycle of purely elastic turbulence
Jiaxing Song, Fenghui Lin, Yabiao Zhu, Zhen‐Hua Wan, Nansheng Liu, Xi‐Yun Lu, Bamin Khomami
Abstract
More than two decades ago it was discovered that very viscous fluids can become turbulent even when the flow speed is vanishingly small. We perform challenging three-dimensional direct numerical simulation of this purely elastic turbulence in the prototypical Taylor-Couette flow with the aim to unravel the underlying mechanism. We demonstrate that in this unique inertialess turbulent state, large-scale solitary vortices and anisotropic elastic traveling waves as well as random velocity perturbations delicately sustain the turbulent dynamic cycle.
Topics & Concepts
TurbulencePhysicsMechanicsVortexAnisotropyClassical mechanicsTaylor–Couette flowCouette flowMechanism (biology)Flow (mathematics)Statistical physicsScale (ratio)OpticsQuantum mechanicsFluid Dynamics and Turbulent FlowsRheology and Fluid Dynamics StudiesMaterial Dynamics and Properties