Disorder suppresses chaos in viscoelastic flows
Abstract
Viscoelastic flows transition from steady to time-dependent, chaotic dynamics under critical flow conditions, but the implications of geometric disorder for flow stability in these systems are unknown. Utilizing microfluidics, we flow a viscoelastic fluid through arrays of cylindrical pillars, which are perturbed from a hexagonal lattice with various degrees of geometric disorder. Small disorder, corresponding to ~ 10% of the lattice constant, delays the transition to higher flow speeds, while larger disorders exhibit near-complete suppression of chaotic velocity fluctuations. We show that the mechanism facilitating flow stability at high disorder is rooted in a shift from extension-dominated to shear-dominated flow type with increasing disorder.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1906.11868,
title = {Disorder suppresses chaos in viscoelastic flows},
author = {Derek M. Walkama and Nicolas Waisbord and Jeffrey S. Guasto},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.11868},
year = {2020}
}