Effect of high-molecular formations on turbulence in dilute polymer solutions

Abstract

The marked reduction of hydrodynamic resistance with addition of certain soluble high polymers to a liquid, discovered by Toms in 1948 [1], later attracted considerable attention by researchers. The Toms effect is observed both under conditions of the internal problem (flow in pipes) and the external problem (flow past bodies). The Toms phenomenon was discovered using a solution of polymethyl methacrylate in monochlorbenzine. Later many experiments were made in aqueous solutions of the sodium salt of carboxymethylcellulose with a molecular weight of about 70 000, where a marked effect was obtained with concentrations of order 10−4. Attention to this effect increased sharply after it was found (apparently first published by Hoyt and Fabula [2]) that there are far more effective polymers, such as polyoxyethylene; the addition of a few dozen parts per million permits reduction of hydrodynamic frictional resistance in pipe flow by about a factor of three.