On the large-Weissenberg-number scaling laws in viscoelastic pipe flows

This work explains a scaling law of the first Landau coefficient of the derived Ginzburg-Landau equation in the weakly nonlinear analysis of axisymmetric viscoelastic pipe flows in the large-Weissenberg-number (Wi) limit, recently reported in Wan et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 929, 2021, A16). Using an asymptotic method, we derive a reduced system, which captures the characteristics of the linear centre-mode instability near the critical condition in the large-Wi limit. Based on the reduced system we then conduct a weakly nonlinear analysis using a multiple-scale expansion method, which readily explains the aforementioned scaling law of the Landau coefficient and some other scaling laws. Particularly, the equilibrium amplitude of disturbance near linear critical conditions is found to scale as Wi^-1/2, which may be of interest to experimentalists. The current analysis reduces the numbers of parameters and unknowns and exemplifies an approach to studying the viscoelastic flow at large Wi, which could shed new light on the understanding of its nonlinear dynamics. © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.