Enhanced Mixing at Low Reynolds Numbers Through Elastic Turbulence

Abstract

A generic nonlinear Maxwell model for the stress tensor in viscoelastic materials is studied under mixing scenarios in a three-dimensional steady lid-driven cavity flow. Resulting laminar and turbulent flow profiles are investigated to study their mixing efficiencies. Massless tracer particles and passive concentrations are included to show that the irregular spatio-temporal chaos, present in turbulent flow, is useful for potential mixing applications. A Lyapunov measure for filament divergence confirms that the turbulent flow is more efficient at mixing.