The center-mode instability of viscoelastic plane Poiseuille flow

TL;DR

This paper identifies a new 'center mode' instability in viscoelastic plane Poiseuille flow, revealing how elasticity influences flow stability and turbulence onset in dilute polymer solutions.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a center-mode instability in viscoelastic flow and analyzes its dependence on key parameters, extending understanding of flow stability in elastic fluids.

Findings

Critical Reynolds number around 200 for typical parameters.

Instability eigenmodes are spread across the channel at onset.

In the elastic limit, Re_c scales as (E(1-β))^{-3/2}.

Abstract

A modal stability analysis shows that plane Poiseuille flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid becomes unstable to a `center mode' with phase speed close to the maximum base-flow velocity, $U_{max}$. The governing dimensionless groups are the Reynolds number $Re = \rho U_{max} H/\eta$, the elasticity number $E = \lambda \eta/(H^2\rho)$, and the ratio of solvent to solution viscosity $\eta_s/\eta$; here, $\lambda$ is the polymer relaxation time, $H$ is the channel half-width, and $\rho$ is the fluid density. For experimentally relevant values (e.g., $E \sim 0.1$ and $\beta \sim 0.9$), the predicted critical Reynolds number, $Re_c$, for the center-mode instability is around $200$, with the associated eigenmodes being spread out across the channel. In the asymptotic limit of $E(1 -\beta) \ll 1$, with $E$ fixed, corresponding to strongly elastic dilute polymer solutions, $Re_c \propto (E(1-\beta))^{-\frac{3}{2}}$ and the critical wavenumber $k_c \propto (E(1-\beta))^{-\frac{1}{2}}$. The unstable eigenmode in this limit is confined in a thin layer near the channel centerline. The above features are largely analogous to the center-mode instability in viscoelastic pipe flow (Garg et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 121, 024502 (2018)), and suggest a universal linear mechanism underlying the onset of turbulence in both channel and pipe flows of suffciently elastic dilute polymer solutions.