Related papers: Pumping viscoelastic two-fluid media
We investigate the dynamics of the two-dimensional periodic Kolmogorov flow of a viscoelastic fluid, described by the Oldroyd-B model, by means of direct numerical simulations. Above a critical Weissenberg number the flow displays a…
Microfluidic devices manufactured from soft polymeric materials have emerged as a paradigm for cheap, disposable and easy-to-prototype fluidic platforms for integrating chemical and biological assays and analyses. The interplay between the…
The study of creeping motion of viscoelastic fluid around a rotating rigid torus is investigated. The analysis of the problem is performed using a second-order viscoelastic model. The study is carried out in terms of the bipolar toroidal…
We present an extensive experimental study of birefringence and velocity-gradient components for a series of high molecular weight, flexible, entangled polystyrene solutions subjected to transient start-up flows in a co-rotating two-mill to…
The elasto-inertial effects on particle focusing in a square-tube flow were investigated experimentally and numerically. Microscale experiments using spherical particles in dilute polymer solutions demonstrated that the particles are…
It has been known for some time that some microorganisms can swim faster in high-viscosity gel-forming polymer solutions. These gel-like media come to mimic highly viscous heterogeneous environment that these microorganisms encounter…
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…
The transition to turbulence in a plane Poiseuille flow of dilute polymer solutions is studied by direct numerical simulations of a FENE-P fluid. A range of Reynolds number ($Re$) in $2000 \le Re \le 5000$ is studied but with the same level…
The small scale statistics of homogeneous isotropic turbulence of dilute polymer solutions is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations of a simplified viscoelastic fluid model. It is found that polymers only partially suppress…
We study the motion of a solid particle immersed in a Newtonian fluid and confined between two parallel elastic membranes possessing shear and bending rigidity. The hydrodynamic mobility depends on the frequency of the particle motion due…
Thermally activated transitions are ubiquitous in nature, occurring in complex environments which are typically conceived as ideal viscous fluids. We report the first direct observations of a Brownian bead transiting between the wells of a…
Fluid-suspended microorganisms have evolved different swimming and feeding strategies in order to cope with an environment dominated by viscous effects. For instance ciliated organisms rely on the collective motion of flexible appendices to…
We model the flow of a bi-viscous non-Newtonian fluid in a porous medium by a square lattice where the links obey a piece-wise linear constitutive equation. We find numerically that the flow regime where the network transitions from all…
We report a regime transition in the coalescence of concentrated polymeric droplets in a pendant-pendant configuration. While Newtonian droplet coalescence has been extensively studied with distinct identification of viscous and inertial…
The dynamics of viscous thin-film particle-laden flows down inclined surfaces are commonly modeled with one of two approaches: a diffusive flux model or a suspension balance model. The diffusive flux model assumes that the particles migrate…
The interaction of flexible polymers with fluid flows leads to a number of intriguing phenomena observed in laboratory experiments, namely drag reduction, elastic turbulence and heat transport modification in natural convection, and is one…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the behavior of closely-fitting spherical and ellipsoidal particles moving through a fluid-filled cylinder at nanometer scales. The particle, the cylinder wall and the fluid solvent are all…
A flow vessel with an elastic wall can deform significantly due to viscous fluid flow within it, even at vanishing Reynolds number (no fluid inertia). Deformation leads to an enhancement of throughput due to the change in cross-sectional…
We study the spreading of viscous and viscoelastic drops on solid substrates with different wettability. In the early stages of spreading, we find that the viscoelastic drop spreads with faster and a different power law than the Newtonian…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…