Research on Coherent Structures in a Mixing Layer of the Fene-P Polymer Solution

Abstract

The evolution of the coherent structures in a two-dimensional time-developing mixing layer of the FENE-P fluids is examined numerically. By the means of an appropriate filtering for the polymer stress, some characteristics of the coherent structures at high b were obtained, which Azaiez and Homsy did not address. The results indicate that adding polymer to the Newtonian fluids will cause stronger vorticity diffusion, accompanied with weaker fundamental and subharmonical perturbations and slower rotational motion of neighboring vortices during pairing. This effect decreases with the Weissenberg number, but increases with b. In addition, the time when the consecutive rollers are completely coalesced into one delays in the viscoelastic mixing layer compared with the Newtonian one of the same total viscosity.