Modeling of Viscous Fingering

E. Holzbecher[1]

[1]Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany
Published in 2009

Viscous fingering is a topic of interest since the beginning of computational fluid dynamics. Here we focus on the classical constellation of miscible displacement, as it has been investigated in Hele-Shaw cells. A temperature or salinity front is entering with a fluid that has a different viscosity. The pure 1D flow is destabilized by the Saffman-Taylor instability. Using COMSOL Multiphysics® we investigate the solution of a 2D generic set-up in an Eulerian system. Initial conditions near the inlet are described by a random function. We explore the fingering solutions in terms of various numerical parameters, i.e. for meshes of various type and refinement. For various solvers we examine the execution time, i.e. the performance of the model.

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