Energy spectra in elasto-inertial turbulence

Abstract

Direct numerical simulations of statistically steady homogeneous isotropic turbulence in viscoelastic fluids described by the FENE-P model are presented. Emphasis is given to large polymer relaxation times compared to the eddy turnover time, which is a regime recently termed elasto-inertial turbulence. In this regime the polymers are ineffective in dissipating kinetic energy but they play a lead role in transferring kinetic energy to the small solvent scales which turns out to be concomitant with the depletion of the usual non-linear energy cascade. However, we show that the non-linear interactions are still highly active, but they lead to no net downscale energy transfer because the forward and reversed energy cascades are nearly balanced. Finally, we show that the tendency for a steeper elasto-inertial power-law spectra is reversed for large polymer relaxation times and the spectra tend towards the usual k(-5/3) functional form.