Fluid Mixing from Viscous Fingering
Author(s)
Jha, Birendra; Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis; Juanes, Ruben
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Mixing efficiency at low Reynolds numbers can be enhanced by exploiting hydrodynamic instabilities that induce heterogeneity and disorder in the flow. The unstable displacement of fluids with different viscosities, or viscous fingering, provides a powerful mechanism to increase fluid-fluid interfacial area and enhance mixing. Here we describe the dissipative structure of miscible viscous fingering, and propose a two-equation model for the scalar variance and its dissipation rate. Our analysis predicts the optimum range of viscosity contrasts that, for a given Péclet number, maximizes interfacial area and minimizes mixing time. In the spirit of turbulence modeling, the proposed two-equation model permits upscaling dissipation due to fingering at unresolved scales.
Date issued
2011-05Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringJournal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Jha, Birendra, Luis Cueto-Felgueroso, and Ruben Juanes. “Fluid Mixing from Viscous Fingering.” Physical Review Letters 106.19 (2011) © 2011 American Physical Society
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0031-9007