title: Crossover from fingering to fracturing in deformable disordered media.
abstract: We investigate the displacement of one fluid by another in a deformable medium with pore-scale disorder. We develop a model that captures the dynamic pressure redistribution at the invasion front and the feedback between fluid invasion and microstructure rearrangement. Our results suggest how to collapse the transition between invasion percolation and viscous fingering in the presence of quenched disorder. We predict the emergence of a fracturing pattern for sufficiently deformable media, in agreement with observations of drainage in granular material. We identify a dimensionless number that appears to govern the crossover from fingering to fracturing.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 48-319, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Ran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Holtzman
authors.forename: Ruben
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Juanes
mesh_terms: D017709:Fractals; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D055595:Mechanical Phenomena; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D016062:Porosity