Experimental research on drag reduction by polymer additives in a turbulent pipe flow

✍ Scribed by Shao Xueming; Lin Jianzhong; Wu Tao; Li Yulin

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 434 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-4034
• DOI: 10.1002/cjce.5450800215

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of injection position on drag reduction as well as further the effects of polymer additives on turbulent structures, LDA measurements of turbulent pipe flows were conducted. The results show that the amount of drag reduction grows with the increase of the Reynolds number, and injecting the polymer at the centre of pipe is more effective than at the wall. Due to the addition of polymer solution, the axial, radial r.m.s. velocity fluctuations and Reynolds stress decrease over the entire pipe cross‐section, the time auto‐correlation coefficients of axial and radial velocity fluctuation at the centre of pipe decay more slowly, the number of spectrum peaks is decreased, and the peak shifts towards lower wave numbers. The results also reveal that, due to the addition of polymer solution, the large‐scale vortices are enhanced and small‐scale vortices are suppressed.