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We address the issue of the convective or absolute nature of the instability of core-annular pipe flows, in experiments using two miscible fluids of equal density but different viscosities, the core fluid being much less viscous than the wall one. We use a concentric co-current injection of the two fluids. An axisymmetric parallel base state is obtained downstream the injector. The core radiusRIand the Reynolds numberReof the so-obtained base state are varied independently due to the control of the flow rate of each fluid. However, a downstream destabilization of this base state was observed within the explored range of the two control parametersRIandRe. Moreover, the fixed location of this destabilization, observed for some particular parameters, suggests an absolute nature of the instability. We present a tentative delineation of the nature (convective or absolute) of the instability and discuss the accessible measurements to experimentally address this issue.

We consider miscible displacement between parallel plates in the absence of diffusion, with a concentration-dependent viscosity. By selecting a piecewise viscosity function, this can also be considered as 'three-fluid' flow in the same geometry. Assuming symmetry across the gap and based on the lubrication ('equilibrium') approximation, a description in terms of two quasi-linear hyperbolic equations is obtained. We find that the system is hyperbolic and can be solved analytically, when the mobility profile is monotonic, or when the mobility of the middle phase is smaller than its neighbours. When the mobility of the middle phase is larger, a change of type is displayed, an elliptic region developing in the composition space. Numerical solutions of Riemann problems of the hyperbolic system spanning the elliptic region, with small diffusion added, show good agreement with the analytical outside, but an unstable behaviour inside the elliptic region. In these problems, the elliptic region arises precisely at the displacement front. Crossing the elliptic region requires the solution of essentially an eigenvalue problem of the full higher-dimensional model, obtained here using lattice BGK simulations

We study experimentally and theoretically the downward vertical displacement of one miscible fluid by another lighter one in the gap of a Hele-Shaw cell at sufficiently high velocities for diffusive effects to be negligible. Under certain conditions on the viscosity ratio, M, and the normalized flow rate, U, this results in the formation of a two-dimensional tongue of the injected fluid, which is symmetric with respect to the midplane. Thresholds in flow rate and viscosity ratio exist above which the two- dimensional flow destabilizes, giving rise to a three-dimensional pattern. We describe in detail the two-dimensional regime using a kinematic wave theory similar to Yang & Yortsos (1997) and we delineate in the (M, U)-plane three different domains, characterized respectively by the absence of a shock, the presence of an internal shock and the presence of a frontal shock. Theoretical and experimental results are compared and found to be in good agreement for the first two domains, but not for the third domain, where the frontal shock is not of the contact type. An analogous treatment is also applied to the case of axisymmetric displacement in a cylindrical tube.

We study the displacement of miscible fluids between two parallel plates, for different values of the Péclet number Pe and of the viscosity ratio M. The full Navier–Stokes problem is addressed. As an alternative to the conventional finite difference methods, we use the BGK lattice gas method, which is well suited to miscible fluids and allows us to incorporate molecular diffusion at the microscopic scale of the lattice. This numerical experiment leads to a symmetric concentration profile about the middle of the gap between the plates; its shape is determined as a function of the Péclet number and the viscosity ratio. At Pe of the order of 1, mixing involves diffusion and advection in the flow direction. At large Pe, the fluids do not mix and an interface between them can be defined. Moreover, above M∼10, the interface becomes a well-defined finger, the reduced width of which tends to λ∞=0.56 at large values of M. Assuming that miscible fluids at high Pe are similar to immiscible fluids at high capillary numbers, we find the analytical shape of that finger, using an extrapolation of the Reinelt–Saffman calculations for a Stokes immiscible flow. Surprisingly, the result is that our finger can be deduced from the famous Saffman–Taylor one, obtained in a potential flow, by a stretching in the flow direction by a factor of 2.12.

Viscous fingering in porous media at large Peclet numbers is subject to an unsolved selection problem, not unlike the Saffman–Taylor problem. The mixing zone predicted by the entropy solution is found to spread much faster than is observed experimentally or from fine-scale numerical simulations. In this paper we apply a recent approach by Menon & Otto (Commun. Math. Phys., vol. 257, 2005, p. 303), to develop bounds for the mixing zone. These give growth velocities smaller than the entropy solution result . An extension to a porous medium with an uncorrelated random heterogeneity is also given.