Chaotic advection and heat transfer enhancement in Stokes flows

The heat transfer rate from a solid boundary to a highly viscous fluid can be enhanced significantly by a phenomenon which is called chaotic advection or Lagrangian turbulence. Although the flow is laminar and dominated by viscous forces, some fluid particle trajectories are chaotic due either to a suitable boundary displacement protocol or to a change in geometry. As in turbulent flow, the heat transfer rate enhancement between the boundary and the fluid is intimately linked to the mixing of fluid in the system. Chaotic advection in real Stokes flows, i.e. flows governed by viscous forces and that can be constructed experimentally, is reviewed in this paper. An emphasis is made on recent new results on 3-D time-periodic open flows which are particularly important in industry.