The motion of a dumbbell molecule in a torsional flow is unstable at high Weissenberg number (Q1069802)

We consider the micro-mechanics of a linear dumbbell molecule in a torsional flow. By a suitable transformation we reduce the problem to essentially a one-dimensional problem in the sense that all the conditional moments of interest are dependent only on the vertical location of the dumbbell's centre of mass. It is then shown that the motion is unstable if the Weissenberg number, defined by the product of the Rouse time and the angular velocity of the upper disk, is high enough (of the order 1). The cause of this instability is the migration velocity field, which acts as a disturbance field on the basic motion. Above a certain critical Weissenberg number the disturbance field wins over the restoring forces causing the dumbbell to stretch unboundedly in time.