Josephson-Anderson relation as diagnostic of turbulent drag reduction by polymers

The detailed Josephson-Anderson relation, which equates instantaneously the volume-integrated vorticity flux and the work by pressure drop, has been the key to drag reduction in superconductors and superfluids. We employ a classical version of this relation to investigate the dynamics of polymer drag-reduced channel flows, particularly in the high-extent drag reduction (HDR) regime which is known to exhibit strong space-time intermittency. We show that high drag is not created instantaneously by near-wall coherent vortex structures as assumed in prior works. These predominantly spanwise near-wall vortex structures can produce a net "up-gradient" flux of vorticity toward the wall, which instead reduces instantaneous drag. Increase of wall vorticity and skin friction due to this up-gradient flux occurs after an apparent lag of several advection times, increasing with the Weissenberg number. This increasing lag appears to be due to polymer damping of up-gradient nonlinear vorticity transport that arises from large-scale eddies in the logarithmic layer. The relatively greater polymer damping of down-gradient transport due to small-scale eddies results in lower net vorticity flux and hence lower drag. The Josephson-Anderson relation thus provides an exact tool to diagnose the mechanism of polymer drag reduction in terms of vorticity dynamics and it explains also prior puzzling observations on transient drag reduction, as for centerline-release experiments in pipe flow.