Drag Reduction by Polymer Addition

Abstract

Special attention is paid to the changes in turbulence structure brought about by polymer additives, and an effort is made to understand these in the light of recent advances in the study of shear flow turbulence in ordinary fluids. Also a simplified theoretical model of shear flow wall turbulence is presented, with the aid of which an exploratory study of the influence of some non-Newtonian fluid properties is carried out. A particularly intriguing feature is the remarkable effectiveness of extremely high-molecular-weight polymers by which only a few parts per million of weight of solvent are sufficient in some cases to lead to drag reductions of 50 per cent or more.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1972
Accession Number
AD0763824

Entities

People

  • Marten T. Landahl

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Drag Reduction
  • Elastic Properties
  • Equations
  • Flow Fields
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Frequency
  • Materials
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Mechanics
  • Pipe Flow
  • Reynolds Number
  • Shear Stresses
  • Stratified Fluids
  • Turbulent Flow
  • Turbulent Mixing

Readers

  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Polymer Science and Engineering.
  • Theoretical Analysis.