Researchers
at Princeton University have developed a simple, easily implementable, highly
effective, and accurate solution to control fluid interfacial instabilities. The researchers discovered that the
simplest heterogeneity in the flow passage can lead to fundamentally different
displacement behaviors. This finding can be leveraged to either inhibit or
trigger an instability and, hence, to devise a strategy to manipulate
instabilities in fluid-fluid systems. The control setting identified has a wide
spectrum of applications ranging from small-scale technologies such as
microfluidics to large-scale operations such as enhanced oil
recovery.
The
displacement of one fluid by another is one of the most common processes
involving interfacial instabilities. It is universally accepted that, in a
uniform medium, flow displacement is unstable when a low viscosity fluid invades
a fluid of higher viscosity: the classical viscous fingering instability. In
most cases, interfacial instabilities hinder the operation of processes and
limit their efficiency. Moreover,
instabilities at the interface of two distinct fluids remain a major challenge
for enhanced oil recovery processes such as water flooding. On the other hand, these instabilities
can be beneficial to chromatographic separation and can improve mixing in
non-turbulent systems and small-scale devices. Depending on the application, either a
stable or an unstable interface is desirable, thus the ability to control
interfacial instabilities is essential in design and technology.
Application
·
All
multiphase flows in narrow passages
-
Microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS)
-
Microreactors
(sensors, lab-on-a-chip technology)
-
Microfluidic
devices (flow cytometry, micro mixing, etc.)
-
Cleaning
of all manners of small devices
·
Large-scale
operations such as enhanced oil recovery
Advantages
·
Simple
system
·
Easily
implementable
·
Accurate
control
·
Highly
effective
Faculty
Inventor
Howard
Stone
is
the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His research has been concerned with a
variety of fundamental problems in fluid motions dominated by viscosity,
so-called low Reynolds number flows, and has frequently featured a combination
of theory, computer simulation and modeling, and experiments to provide a
quantitative understanding of the flow phenomenon under investigation. Prof. Stone is the recipient of the most
prestigious fluid mechanics prize, the Batchelor Prize 2008, for the best
research in fluid mechanics in the last ten years. He is also a member of the Class of 2011
inductees of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Intellectual
Property status