Relaminarization of elastic turbulence

We report frictional drag reduction and a complete flow relaminarization of elastic turbulence (ET) at vanishing inertia in a viscoelastic channel flow past an obstacle. We show that the intensity of the observed elastic waves and wall-normal vorticity correlate well with the measured drag above the onset of ET. Moreover, we find that the elastic wave frequency grows with the Weissenberg number, and at sufficiently high frequency it causes a decay of the elastic waves, resulting in ET attenuation and drag reduction. Thus, this allows us to substantiate a physical mechanism, involving the interaction of elastic waves with wall-normal vorticity fluctuations, leading to the drag reduction and relaminarization phenomena at low Reynolds number.