Elastic turbulence in channel flows

In micro-scale systems, the efficient mixing of different species proves challenging since inertial turbulence gives way to the dominance of viscous diffusion, due to the small geometries and flow rates. To recover a chaotic fluid motion at vanishing inertia, elastic properties can be conferred upon the fluid dissolving small amounts of polymers, resulting in what is known as elastic turbulence. In our study, we employ fully resolved 3D numerical simulations and the FENE-P polymer model to characterize this turbulent state in planar geometries, and compare it with what observed at large Reynolds number. In the talk, we will present how the shear momentum balance is altered by polymers at vanishing inertia, and investigate the resulting mean and fluctuating components of the velocity field.