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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Assembly and Characterization of an External Driver for the Generation of Sub-Kilohertz Oscillatory Flow in Microchannels
Published on: January 28, 2022
Transition to mixing and oscillations in a Stokesian viscoelastic flow
Becca Thomases1, Michael Shelley
1Department of Mathematics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA.
Abstract:
In seeking to understand experiments on low-Reynolds-number mixing and flow transitions in viscoelastic fluids, we simulate the dynamics of the Oldroyd-B model, with a simple background force driving the flow. We find that at small Weissenberg number, flows are "slaved" to the extensional geometry imposed by forcing. For large Weissenberg number, such solutions become unstable and transit to a structurally dissimilar state dominated by a single large vortex. This new state can show persistent oscillatory behavior with the production and destruction of smaller-scale vortices that drive mixing.
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