Elastic Turbulence — Viscoelastic Flow (Oldroyd-B)

Elastic turbulence (Groisman & Steinberg 2000) arises in viscoelastic fluids at low Reynolds number when the Weissenberg number Wi > 1. Polymer stretching creates chaotic advection without inertia.

Tracer particles in chaotic viscoelastic flow. At Wi>1, polymer stretching drives chaotic mixing.