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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Experimental Investigation of Secondary Flow Structures Downstream of a Model Type IV Stent Failure in a 180° Curved Artery Test Section
Published on: July 19, 2016
Purely elastic flow asymmetries
R J Poole1, M A Alves, P J Oliveira
1Department of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L69 3GH United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Using a numerical technique we demonstrate that the flow of the simplest differential viscoelastic fluid model (i.e., the upper-convected Maxwell model) goes through a bifurcation to a steady asymmetric state when flowing in a perfectly symmetric "cross-slot" geometry. We show that this asymmetry is purely elastic in nature and that the effect of inertia is a stabilizing one. Our results are in qualitative agreement with very recent experimental visualizations of a similar flow in the microfluidic apparatus of Arratia et al.
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