Analysis of polymer drag reduction mechanisms from energy budgets

The transfer of energy in drag reducing viscoelastic flows is analyzed through a sequence of energetic budgets that include the mean and turbulent kinetic energy, and the mean polymeric energy and mean elastic potential energy. Within the context of single-point statistics, this provides a complete picture of the energy exchange between the mean, turbulent and polymeric fields. The analysis utilizes direct simulation data of a fully developed channel flow at a moderately high friction Reynolds number of 1000 and at medium (30%) and high (58%) drag reduction levels using a FENE-P polymeric model.Results show that the primary effect of the interaction between the turbulent and polymeric fields is to transfer energy from the turbulence to the polymer, and that the magnitude of this transfer does not change between the low and high drag reduction flows. This one-way transfer, with an amplitude independent of the drag reduction regime, comes in contradiction with the purely elastic coupling which is implicit within the elastic theory of the polymer drag reduction phenomenon by Tabor and De Gennes (Europhys. Lett. 2, pp. 519–522, 1986).