Elastic turbulence and polymer drag reduction
A tiny amount of long polymer molecules dissolved in water can make a slow, syrupy flow chaotic, driven by stretching of the molecules instead of by inertia, and can cut the friction of fast turbulent pipe flow by up to about 80 percent. How these chaotic states arise in straight pipes and channels and what limits drag reduction are not known.
Why it matters
Polymer additives reduce pumping costs in pipelines and mix fluids in microchannels where inertia is absent.
Review
V. Steinberg, Elastic turbulence: an experimental view on inertialess random flow, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-fluid-010719-060129 reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- b3c75da8fa5e…
- Public log
- Entry 216, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
This text was in the PubPhys log by that date. The date says nothing about when the problem was first posed.