Premium
Elasticity suppresses viscous fingering in a reactive Hele‐Shaw cell
Author(s) -
Mokbel Dominic,
Aland Sebastian
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.201900251
Subject(s) - viscous fingering , viscoelasticity , elasticity (physics) , instability , viscosity , mechanics , materials science , hele shaw flow , porous medium , physics , composite material , flow (mathematics) , porosity , open channel flow
We consider a system of two liquids in a Hele‐Shaw cell that form a viscoelastic material layer between them by a chemical reaction. Is has been demonstrated that this system leads to a fingering instability, supposedly by the elasticity of the newly created material phase. To explore this mechanism we employ a novel phase‐field model [1], which can handle fluid‐structure interaction involving growing elastic materials. Assuming the newly created phase to be a viscoelastic Kelvin‐Voigt material, we find that this mechanism alone does not explain the experimentally observed fingering. Imposing a viscosity contrast between the materials, we even find the presence of elasticity to suppress any viscous fingering.