Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 094501 (2009) [4 pages]Transition to Mixing and Oscillations in a Stokesian Viscoelastic FlowReceived 30 January 2009; published 26 August 2009 In seeking to understand experiments on low-Reynolds-number mixing and flow transitions in viscoelastic fluids, we simulate the dynamics of the Oldroyd-B model, with a simple background force driving the flow. We find that at small Weissenberg number, flows are “slaved” to the extensional geometry imposed by forcing. For large Weissenberg number, such solutions become unstable and transit to a structurally dissimilar state dominated by a single large vortex. This new state can show persistent oscillatory behavior with the production and destruction of smaller-scale vortices that drive mixing. © 2009 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.094501
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.094501
PACS:
47.50.−d
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