Elastoinertial nonlinear traveling waves

Polymeric additives are commonly used in pipeline transport of liquids such as crude oil transport, water heating and cooling systems, and airplane tank filling because the addition of a tiny amount of polymers dramatically reduces turbulent drag and ultimately the pumping cost. However, the turbulent drag cannot be reduced beyond a certain limit through the polymers. Because the polymeric addition can lead to the emergence of elasticity-induced a new type of turbulence known as elastoinertial turbulence, which is suspected to limit the drag reduction due to polymer additives. We investigate nonlinear traveling waves in the elastoinertial regime in viscoelastic channel flows using a parallelized nonlinear solver based on Dedalus and explore the possibility of pure traveling waves underlying the chaotic dynamics of elastoinertial turbulence. One family of such waves emerges from the nonlinear self-sustaining Tollmien–Schlichting wave of Newtonian flow. This study also sheds light on the transition route to elastoinertial turbulence in channel flow.