| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/R045364/1 |
| Title: |
Viscous fingering on soft substrates |
| Principal Investigator: |
Pihler-Puzovic, Dr D |
| Other Investigators: |
|
| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
|
| Project Partners: |
|
| Department: |
Physics and Astronomy |
| Organisation: |
University of Manchester, The |
| Scheme: |
New Investigator Award |
| Starts: |
01 January 2019 |
Ends: |
30 September 2021 |
Value (£): |
237,970
|
| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Complex fluids & soft solids |
Continuum Mechanics |
| Rheology |
|
|
| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
|
|
| Related Grants: |
|
| Panel History: |
|
|
Summary on Grant Application Form |
The research proposed here is motivated by recent striking observations of the viscous fingering instability on soft substrates. This instability readily develops if a viscous fluid is displaced by a less viscous fluid in a narrow gap between rigid plates, and typically results in complex highly branched patterns of fingers on the interface between the two fluids. Viscous fingering has been of long-standing research interest because it serves as an archetype for front-propagating pattern-forming phenomena, as diverse as the growth of bacterial colonies and the propagation of flame fronts. We find that this instability can be manipulated by replacing the bottom bounding plate with a soft substrate. Firstly, we observe that the instability can be delayed, so that the interface remains axisymmetric for injection rates at which the pattern in the corresponding rigid system already exhibits nonlinear growth. This is similar to other systems in which the fluid flow interacts with a compliant boundary, for example, with thin elastic membranes, although soft substrates deform differently compared to those. Secondly, the thickness and the stiffness of the soft substrate can be tuned to change the structure of the fingers that do develop once the circular interface becomes unstable to non-axisymmetric perturbations. The resulting patterns range from the highly branched fingering observed in rigid systems to the stubby fingers that develop on the meniscus between two cylinders co-rotating with the same speed. Thus, the instability is strongly influenced by the deformation of the soft substrate, which in turn deforms in response to the two-phase flow, and is likely to have viscoelastic properties. We propose to employ a combination of experimental, theoretical and computational approaches to fully-characterise the complex fluid-structure interactions that lead to these novel phenomena.
|
|
Key Findings |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Potential use in non-academic contexts |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Impacts |
|
| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
|
| Date Materialised |
|
|
|
|
Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
| Project URL: |
|
| Further Information: |
|
| Organisation Website: |
http://www.man.ac.uk |