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Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media

Finger-like protrusions that form along fluid−fluid displacement fronts in porous media are often excited by hydrodynamic instability when low-viscosity fluids displace high-viscosity resident fluids. Such interfacial instabilities are undesirable in many natural and engineered displacement processe...

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Autores principales: Rabbani, Harris Sajjad, Or, Dani, Liu, Ying, Lai, Ching-Yao, Lu, Nancy B., Datta, Sujit S., Stone, Howard A., Shokri, Nima
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5948996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29686067
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800729115
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author Rabbani, Harris Sajjad
Or, Dani
Liu, Ying
Lai, Ching-Yao
Lu, Nancy B.
Datta, Sujit S.
Stone, Howard A.
Shokri, Nima
author_facet Rabbani, Harris Sajjad
Or, Dani
Liu, Ying
Lai, Ching-Yao
Lu, Nancy B.
Datta, Sujit S.
Stone, Howard A.
Shokri, Nima
author_sort Rabbani, Harris Sajjad
collection PubMed
description Finger-like protrusions that form along fluid−fluid displacement fronts in porous media are often excited by hydrodynamic instability when low-viscosity fluids displace high-viscosity resident fluids. Such interfacial instabilities are undesirable in many natural and engineered displacement processes. We report a phenomenon whereby gradual and monotonic variation of pore sizes along the front path suppresses viscous fingering during immiscible displacement, that seemingly contradicts conventional expectation of enhanced instability with pore size variability. Experiments and pore-scale numerical simulations were combined with an analytical model for the characteristics of displacement front morphology as a function of the pore size gradient. Our results suggest that the gradual reduction of pore sizes act to restrain viscous fingering for a predictable range of flow conditions (as anticipated by gradient percolation theory). The study provides insights into ways for suppressing unwanted interfacial instabilities in porous media, and provides design principles for new engineered porous media such as exchange columns, fabric, paper, and membranes with respect to their desired immiscible displacement behavior.
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spelling pubmed-59489962018-05-14 Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media Rabbani, Harris Sajjad Or, Dani Liu, Ying Lai, Ching-Yao Lu, Nancy B. Datta, Sujit S. Stone, Howard A. Shokri, Nima Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Finger-like protrusions that form along fluid−fluid displacement fronts in porous media are often excited by hydrodynamic instability when low-viscosity fluids displace high-viscosity resident fluids. Such interfacial instabilities are undesirable in many natural and engineered displacement processes. We report a phenomenon whereby gradual and monotonic variation of pore sizes along the front path suppresses viscous fingering during immiscible displacement, that seemingly contradicts conventional expectation of enhanced instability with pore size variability. Experiments and pore-scale numerical simulations were combined with an analytical model for the characteristics of displacement front morphology as a function of the pore size gradient. Our results suggest that the gradual reduction of pore sizes act to restrain viscous fingering for a predictable range of flow conditions (as anticipated by gradient percolation theory). The study provides insights into ways for suppressing unwanted interfacial instabilities in porous media, and provides design principles for new engineered porous media such as exchange columns, fabric, paper, and membranes with respect to their desired immiscible displacement behavior. National Academy of Sciences 2018-05-08 2018-04-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5948996/ /pubmed/29686067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800729115 Text en Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Physical Sciences
Rabbani, Harris Sajjad
Or, Dani
Liu, Ying
Lai, Ching-Yao
Lu, Nancy B.
Datta, Sujit S.
Stone, Howard A.
Shokri, Nima
Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title_full Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title_fullStr Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title_full_unstemmed Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title_short Suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
title_sort suppressing viscous fingering in structured porous media
topic Physical Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5948996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29686067
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800729115
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