Instability in displacement of viscous fluids from porous specimens

The goal of the present study is to investigate numerically the instability of the displacement of viscous fluid by a less viscous one in a 2D, 3D porous specimens, and to determine characteristic size of entrapment zones. Experiments on miscible displacement of fluids in Hele-Shaw cells were conducted under microgravity conditions and reported at the previous Congress. The present paper contains the results of extensive direct numerical simulations, which allowed to investigate the sensitivity of the displacement process to variation of values of the main governing parameters. The effect of the 3D phenomena on development of instability was investigated.