Fingering regimes in unstable miscible displacements
Saad Hamid, Ann Muggeridge
Abstract
We study the life-cycle of miscible fingering, from the early fingering initiation, through their growth and nonlinear interactions to their decay to a single finger at late times. Dimensionless analysis is used to relate the number of fingers, the nature of their nonlinear interactions (spreading, coalescence, tip splitting), and their eventual decay to the viscosity ratio, transverse Peclet number, and anisotropic dispersion. We show that the initial number of fingers that grow is approximately half that predicted by analytical solutions that neglect the impact of longitudinal diffusion smearing the interface between the injected solvent and the displaced fluid. The growth rates of these fingers are also approximately one quarter that predicted by these analyses. Nonetheless, we find that the dynamics of finger interactions over time can be scaled using the most dangerous wavenumber and associated growth rate determined from linear stability analysis. This subsequently allows us to provide a relationship that can be used to estimate when predict when the late time, single finger regime will occur.