Racetrack for competing viscous fingers

We have observed viscous fingering flow in a Hele-Shaw cell, starting from a carefully prepared initial state of fourteen almost identical fingers. As the flow progresses, killing off thirteen of the fingers on its way to the single-finger steady state, several systematic effects stand out, includin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 1989-12, Vol.63 (25), p.2729-2732
Main Authors: CURTIS, S. A, MAHER, J. V
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ALKANES
CONVECTION
CORRELATION FUNCTIONS
DIMENSIONS
ELEMENTS
ENERGY TRANSFER
ENGINEERING
Exact sciences and technology
Fluid dynamics
FLUID FLOW
FLUORINATED ALIPHATIC HYDROCARBONS
FUNCTIONS
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
GAS FLOW
GLASS
HALOGENATED ALIPHATIC HYDROCARBONS
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDROCARBONS
INSTABILITY
MASS TRANSFER
MATERIALS
NITROGEN
Nonhomogeneous flows
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
NONMETALS
OILS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC FLUORINE COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PARAFFIN
PATTERN RECOGNITION
PETROCHEMICALS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
Physics
PLASTICS
PLATES
POLY
POLYETHYLENES
POLYTETRAFLUOROETHYLENE
SPACERS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
SYNTHETIC MATERIALS
TEFLON
THICKNESS
TRAJECTORIES
TWO-PHASE FLOW
VISCOUS FLOW
WAXES 420400 > Engineering-- Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow
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Description
Summary:We have observed viscous fingering flow in a Hele-Shaw cell, starting from a carefully prepared initial state of fourteen almost identical fingers. As the flow progresses, killing off thirteen of the fingers on its way to the single-finger steady state, several systematic effects stand out, including (1) a characteristic trajectory for a finger which depends not on its position in the starting gate'' but rather on its final position in the race'' and, most importantly, (2) a cascade of reverse bifurcations, stages in which the number of competing fingers is reduced, typically by a factor of 2.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.2729