Phys. Rev. E 65, 030601(R) (2002) [4 pages]

Fluctuations in viscous fingering

Abstract

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Mitchell G. Moore^*, Anne Juel^†, John M. Burgess, W. D. McCormick, and Harry L. Swinney^‡
Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Received 17 October 2001; published 8 February 2002

Our experiments on viscous (Saffman-Taylor) fingering in Hele-Shaw channels reveal finger width fluctuations that were not observed in previous experiments, which had lower aspect ratios and higher capillary numbers Ca. These fluctuations intermittently narrow the finger from its expected width. The magnitude of these fluctuations is described by a power law, Ca^-0.64, which holds for all aspect ratios studied up to the onset of tip instabilities. Further, for large aspect ratios, the mean finger width exhibits a maximum as Ca is decreased instead of the predicted monotonic increase.

URL:

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.65.030601

DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevE.65.030601

PACS:

47.20.Ma, 47.20.Hw, 47.54.+r, 68.05.-n

^*Electronic address: mgmoore@chaos.ph.utexas.edu

^†Present address: Department of Mathematics, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.; electronic address: anne.juel@ma.man.ac.uk

^‡Electronic address: swinney@chaos.ph.utexas.edu

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Phys. Rev. E 65, 030601(R) (2002) [4 pages]

Fluctuations in viscous fingering