Laminar planar jets of elastoviscoplastic fluids

We perform numerical simulations of planar jets of elastoviscoplastic (EVP) fluid (Saramito (2007) model) at low Reynolds number. Three different configurations are considered: ( i ) EVP jet in EVP ambient fluid, ( i i ) EVP jet in Newtonian ambient fluid (miscible), and ( i i i ) EVP jet in Newtonian ambient fluid (immiscible). We investigate the effect of the Bingham number, i.e. of the dimensionless yield stress of the EVP fluid, on the jet dynamics, and find a good agreement with the scaling for laminar, Newtonian jets for the centerline velocity u c / u 0 ∝ ( x / h ) − 1 / 3 and for the jet thickness δ m o m / h ∝ ( x / h ) 2 / 3 at small Bingham number. This is lost once substantial regions of the fluid become unyielded, where we find that the spreading rate of the jet and the decay rate of the centerline velocity increase with the Bingham number, due to the regions of unyielded fluid inducing a blockage effect on the jet. The most striking difference among the three configurations we considered is the extent and position of the regions of unyielded fluid: large portions of ambient and jet fluids (in particular, away from the inlet) are unyielded for the EVP jet in EVP ambient fluid, whereas for the other two configurations, the regions of unyielded fluid are limited to the jet, as expected. We derive a power law scaling for the centerline yield variable and confirm it with the results from our numerical simulations. The yield variable determines the transition from the viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid (yielded) to the viscoelastic Kelvin–Voigt material (unyielded). • Unyielded fluid regions increase spreading rate and centerline velocity decay rate. • At low Bingham numbers power law scalings for Newtonian jets apply to EVP jets. • Yield variable at the centerline scales as the local reference stress.