Influence of polymer additive on flow past an underwater slender body

It's known that the properties of viscoelastic fluid are very different to Newtonian fluid. In this paper, the influence of polymer additive on flow past a bluff body is discussed. The commercial software Fluent as well as its secondary development is employed to describe the viscoelastic fluid flow, which is modeled by Oldroyd-B constitutive equations. Turbulence model is evaluate by Large eddy simulation as well as other frequently used two-equations model, which shown k-w SST is much better than standard K-e turbulent model. The numerical results indicate that the drag of slender body can be reduced by the polymer additives. while at high Weissenberg number, the drag force can be enhanced. The existence of elastic stress is active to suppress the turbulence fluctuations and keep the fluid flow in a more regular way.