Coherent structures in Newtonian and viscoelastic turbulent planar jets

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Amor, Christian, Corrochano, Adrián, Soligo, Giovanni, Clainche, Soledad Le, Rosti, Marco Edoardo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Amor, Christian
Corrochano, Adrián
Soligo, Giovanni
Clainche, Soledad Le
Rosti, Marco Edoardo
author_facet Amor, Christian
Corrochano, Adrián
Soligo, Giovanni
Clainche, Soledad Le
Rosti, Marco Edoardo
contents The addition of a small amount of long-chain polymers confers viscoelastic properties to Newtonian flows. The resulting non-Newtonian solution now exhibits different dynamics, such as enhanced mixing at low Reynolds, where elastic instabilities can trigger elastic turbulence even though inertial turbulence is absent. Here, we study this phenomenon in viscoelastic planar jets and, in particular, we do it from the perspective of coherent structures to understand how elastic turbulence is triggered and sustained, which remain barely explored in this setup. We introduce the spatio-temporal Koopman decomposition for extracting the dominant flow patterns, and we compare them with those from Newtonian planar jets at high Reynolds number. Global flow structures are similar between jets, with low-frequency streaks and high-frequency wave packets dominating the turbulent dynamics. However, structures are strikingly different in the near field, where elasticity-driven streaks affect the dynamics in the potential core of the viscoelastic planar jet, modifying the bulk flow and interacting with the flow instability. The analysis of the polymer field reveals stretched polymer filaments and centre-mode structures, which support the implication of the near-field streaks on sustaining elastic turbulence in three-dimensional viscoelastic planar jets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_26291
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Coherent structures in Newtonian and viscoelastic turbulent planar jets
Amor, Christian
Corrochano, Adrián
Soligo, Giovanni
Clainche, Soledad Le
Rosti, Marco Edoardo
Fluid Dynamics
The addition of a small amount of long-chain polymers confers viscoelastic properties to Newtonian flows. The resulting non-Newtonian solution now exhibits different dynamics, such as enhanced mixing at low Reynolds, where elastic instabilities can trigger elastic turbulence even though inertial turbulence is absent. Here, we study this phenomenon in viscoelastic planar jets and, in particular, we do it from the perspective of coherent structures to understand how elastic turbulence is triggered and sustained, which remain barely explored in this setup. We introduce the spatio-temporal Koopman decomposition for extracting the dominant flow patterns, and we compare them with those from Newtonian planar jets at high Reynolds number. Global flow structures are similar between jets, with low-frequency streaks and high-frequency wave packets dominating the turbulent dynamics. However, structures are strikingly different in the near field, where elasticity-driven streaks affect the dynamics in the potential core of the viscoelastic planar jet, modifying the bulk flow and interacting with the flow instability. The analysis of the polymer field reveals stretched polymer filaments and centre-mode structures, which support the implication of the near-field streaks on sustaining elastic turbulence in three-dimensional viscoelastic planar jets.
title Coherent structures in Newtonian and viscoelastic turbulent planar jets
topic Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26291