Structural and dynamical characterization of Hele-Shaw viscous fingering.
Viscous fingering occurs in the interfacial zone between two fluids confined between two plates with a narrow gap (Hele-Shaw geometry) when a highly viscous fluid is displaced by a fluid with relatively low viscosity. Using a mesoscopic approach--the lattice Boltzmann method--we investigate the dynamics of spatially extended Hele-Shaw flow under conditions corresponding to various experimental systems by tuning the 'surface tension' and the reactivity between the two fluids. We discuss the onset of the fingering instability (dispersion relation), analyse the structural properties (characterization of the interface) and the dynamical properties (growth of the mixing zone) of the Hele-Shaw systems, and show the effect of reactive processes on the structure of the interfacial zone.
Grosfils
Patrick
P
Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium. pgrosfi@ulb.ac.be
Boon
Jean Pierre
JP
Chin
Jonathan
J
Boek
Edo S
ES