Coexisting chaos and order in micro-textured elastic flows
Abstract
Viscoelastic fluid flows over micro-textured surfaces - densely covered by slender protrusions like cilia lining the body airways or villi covering the intestinal epithelium - underpin essential biological processes including transport, mixing, and absorption. Despite their ubiquity, the dynamics generated by the interplay between fluid elasticity and these complex geometries remain largely unexplored. Here we combine fully resolved numerical simulations with microfluidic experiments to reveal the flow dynamics established above dense arrays of microscopic pillars (canopies) immersed in the low-Reynolds-number flow of a viscoelastic liquid. We observe that the flow above the canopy tips spontaneously develops elastic turbulence. Remarkably, the chaotic state coexists with elastic waves emerging from the coupling between fluid elasticity and the heterogeneous shear induced by the canopy geometry. These ordered fluid motions persist across a broad range of flow conditions and canopy configurations. Our results demonstrate that coherent wave propagation and elastic turbulence are complementary manifestations of viscoelastic fluid flow. Beyond their fundamental significance, these mechanisms have broad implications for transport in biological and engineered environments, and reveal how structured geometries can harness the spontaneous dynamics of viscoelastic liquids to manipulate complex flows.
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BibTeX
@misc{rota2026coexisting,
title = {{Coexisting chaos and order in micro-textured elastic flows}},
author = {Giulio Foggi Rota and Ricardo Arturo Lopez de la Cruz and Simon J. Haward and Amy Q. Shen and Marco Edoardo Rosti},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.30286},
eprint = {2608.30286},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.30286},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Coexisting chaos and order in micro-textured elastic flows
AU - Giulio Foggi Rota
AU - Ricardo Arturo Lopez de la Cruz
AU - Simon J. Haward
AU - Amy Q. Shen
AU - Marco Edoardo Rosti
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/31
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.30286
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.30286
AB - Viscoelastic fluid flows over micro-textured surfaces - densely covered by slender protrusions like cilia lining the body airways or villi covering the intestinal epithelium - underpin essential biological processes including transport, mixing, and absorption. Despite their ubiquity, the dynamics generated by the interplay between fluid elasticity and these complex geometries remain largely unexplored. Here we combine fully resolved numerical simulations with microfluidic experiments to reveal the flow dynamics established above dense arrays of microscopic pillars (canopies) immersed in the low-Reynolds-number flow of a viscoelastic liquid. We observe that the flow above the canopy tips spontaneously develops elastic turbulence. Remarkably, the chaotic state coexists with elastic waves emerging from the coupling between fluid elasticity and the heterogeneous shear induced by the canopy geometry. These ordered fluid motions persist across a broad range of flow conditions and canopy configurations. Our results demonstrate that coherent wave propagation and elastic turbulence are complementary manifestations of viscoelastic fluid flow. Beyond their fundamental significance, these mechanisms have broad implications for transport in biological and engineered environments, and reveal how structured geometries can harness the spontaneous dynamics of viscoelastic liquids to manipulate complex flows.
ER -