Modeling viscoelastic flow with discrete methods

TL;DR

This paper explores simulating viscoelastic flows using dissipative particle dynamics, offering potential advantages over traditional grid-based methods by reducing numerical instabilities and providing clearer physical insights.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of modeling viscoelastic flow with dissipative particle dynamics, addressing limitations of conventional numerical methods.

Findings

Dissipative particle dynamics can mitigate numerical instabilities.

The method offers better physical insight into flow instabilities.

Potential for improved simulation of complex viscoelastic phenomena.

Abstract

The hydrodynamics of viscoelastic materials (for example polymer melts and solutions) presents interesting and complex phenomena, for example instabilities and turbulent flow at very low Reynolds numbers due to normal stress effects and the existence of a finite stress relaxation time. This present work is motivated by renewed interest in instabilities in polymer flow. The majority of currently used numerical methods discretize a constitutive equation on a grid with finite difference or similar methods. We present work in progress in which we simulate viscoelastic flow with dissipative particle dynamics. The advantage of this approach is that many of the numerical instabilities of conventional methods can be avoided, and that the model gives clear physical insight into the origins of many viscoelastic flow instabilities.