Additive Equivalence in Turbulent Drag Reduction by Flexible and Rodlike Polymers

Abstract

We address the "Additive Equivalence" discovered by Virk and coworkers: drag reduction affected by flexible and rigid rodlike polymers added to turbulent wall-bounded flows is limited from above by a very similar Maximum Drag Reduction (MDR) asymptote. Considering the equations of motion of rodlike polymers in wall-bounded turbulent ensembles, we show that although the microscopic mechanism of attaining the MDR is very different, the macroscopic theory is isomorphic, rationalizing the interesting experimental observations.

8 pages, PRE, submitted

References in corpus (4)

• Drag Reduction by Polymers in Wall Bounded Turbulence
• Drag Reduction by a Linear Viscosity Profile
• The Polymer Stress Tensor in Turbulent Shear Flows
• Saturation of Turbulent Drag Reduction in Dilute Polymer Solutions

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• Drag Reduction by Bubble Oscillations
• Comparison of Theory and Direct Numerical Simulations of Drag Reduction by Rodlike Polymers in Turbulent Channel Flows
• Phenomenology of Wall Bounded Newtonian Turbulence
• Emergence of chaos in a viscous solution of rods
• Turbulent Drag Reduction by Flexible and Rodlike Polymers: Crossover Effects at Small Concentrations
• Rotational relaxation time as unifying time scale for polymer and fiber drag reduction
• Enhancement of drag and mixing in a dilute solution of rodlike polymers at low Reynolds numbers
• Orientational order and topological defects in a dilute solutions of rodlike polymers at low Reynolds number