Heat transport modification by finitely extensible polymers in laminar boundarya layera flow

We study how heat transport is affected by finitely extensible polymers in a laminar boundary layer flow within the framework of the Prandtl–Blasius–Pohlhausen theory. The polymers are described by the finitely extensible nonlinear elastic-Peterlin model with a parameter b2, which is the ratio of the maximum to the equilibrium value of the trace of the polymer conformation tensor. For very large b2, heat transport is reduced. When b2 is small, heat transport is enhanced. We investigate the transition from heat reduction to heat enhancement as a function of the polymer relaxation time and concentration, and show that the transition can be explained in terms of the functional shape of the space-dependent effective viscosity due to the polymers.