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  • Open Access

Route to instability in viscoelastic flows via porous interfaces

Parisa Mirbod* and Elmira Taheri

  • *Contact author: pmirbod@uic.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033351 – Published 22 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yfhc-v5hq

Abstract

We identify an instability mechanism in pressure-driven viscoelastic channel flows bounded by porous walls. Unlike the elastoinertial center mode in impermeable channels or the classical porous-wall mode in Newtonian flows, the instability uncovered here is wall localized and arises from the coupling of polymeric stress transport with interfacial momentum leakage. Elastic normal stresses concentrate disturbances at the fluid-porous interface, while permeability simultaneously enables slip-driven stress amplification and dissipative leakage, producing a wall-confined elastoinertial mode. The resulting instability occurs at Reynolds and Weissenberg numbers well below classical thresholds and exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence on permeability. In the strongly elastic limit, the onset is governed by interfacial stress localization rather than inertial amplification, rendering inertia nonessential. These findings show that permeability not only shifts stability boundaries but also reorganizes the instability mechanism itself, establishing a boundary-driven route to transition in porous-bounded viscoelastic flows.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033351– Published 22 September, 2026
  • Received 5 November 2025
  • Accepted 17 June 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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