Raz Kupferman

Title:
Progress and challenges in the high Weissenberg number problem

Abstract:
Since the early 1970s the field of computational rheology has been haunted by the so-called high-Weissenberg number problem---the breakdown of all computational methods at frustratingly low values of the elasticity parameter. Even the very nature of this phenomenon  has been a matter of great controversy. Despite the fact that this field has evolved in many new directions, the original difficulties have remained to a large extent unanswered. In my talk I will review (relatively) recent progress such as the log-c formulation, and re-examine from both numerical and anaytical points of view the remaining difficulties.