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Wettability controls slow immiscible displacement through local interfacial instabilities

Michael Jung, Martin Brinkmann*, and Ralf Seemann

Thomas Hiller

Marta Sanchez de La Lama

Stephan Herminghaus

  • Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany and Experimental Physics, Saarland University, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany

  • Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany and Institute for Applied Geophysics and Geothermal Energy, RWTH Aachen, 52074 Aachen, Germany

  • Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany and Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, 0315 Oslo, Norway

  • Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany

  • *martin.brinkmann@physik.uni-saarland.de
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 1, 074202 – Published 3 November, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.1.074202

Abstract

Immiscible fluid displacement with average front velocities in the capillary-dominated regime is studied in a transparent Hele-Shaw cell with cylindrical posts. Employing various combinations of fluids and wall materials allows us to cover a range of advancing contact angles 46∘≤θa≤180∘ of the invading fluid in our experiments. In parallel, we study the displacement process in particle-based simulations that account for wall wettability. Considering the same arrangement of posts in experiments and simulation, we find a consistent crossover between stable interfacial displacement at θa≲80∘ and capillary fingering at high contact angles θa≳120∘. The position of the crossover is quantified through the evolution of the interface length and the final saturation of the displaced fluid. A statistical analysis of the local displacement processes demonstrates that the shape evolution of the fluid front is governed by local instabilities as proposed by Cieplak and Robbins for a quasistatic interfacial displacement [Cieplak and Robbins, Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 2042 (1988)]. The regime of stable front advances coincides with a corresponding region of contact angles where cooperative interfacial instabilities prevail. Capillary fingering, however, is observed only for large θa, where noncooperative instabilities dominate the invasion process.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 1, 074202– Published 3 November, 2016
  • Received 17 May 2016

©2016 American Physical Society

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