Fluid viscoelasticity controls acoustic streaming via shear waves

arXiv:2602.17081v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Control of acoustic streaming can significantly impact fluid and particle transport in microfluidics. We report enhancement, suppression, and reversal of acoustic streaming inside a rectangular microchannel by controlling the fluid viscoelastic properties. Our study reveals that the streaming regimes depend on Deborah number ($De$) and viscous diffusion number ($Dv$), expressed in terms of a Streaming Coefficient ($C_s$). We find streaming is enhanced when $C_s>1$, suppressed for $0leq C_sleq1$, and reversed when $C_s