Physics
Unstable Invasion of Sedimenting Granular Suspensions
Document Type
Article
Abstract
We investigate the development of mobility inversion and fingering when a granular suspension is injected radially between horizontal parallel plates of a cell filled with a miscible fluid. While the suspension spreads uniformly when the suspension and the displaced fluid densities are exactly matched, even a small density difference is found to result in a dense granular front which develops fingers with angular spacing that increase with granular volume fraction and decrease with injection rate. We show that the timescale over which the instability develops is given by the volume fraction dependent settling timescale of the grains in the cell. We then show that the mobility inversion and the nonequilibrium Korteweg surface tension due to granular volume fraction gradients determine the number of fingers at the onset of the instability in these miscible suspensions.
Publication Title
Physical Review Letters
Publication Date
7-31-2020
Volume
125
Issue
5
ISSN
0031-9007
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.054501
Keywords
geophysical fluid dynamics, granular flows, pattern formation, Saffman-Taylor instability, suspensions
Repository Citation
Kudrolli, Arshad; Jewel, Rausan; Sharma, Ram Sudhir; and Petroff, Alexander P., "Unstable Invasion of Sedimenting Granular Suspensions" (2020). Physics. 87.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_physics/87
Cross Post Location
Student Publications
