Control of centrifugally driven fingering in a tapered Hele-Shaw cell

Abstract

Conventional studies of the centrifugally driven fingering instability are performed in rotating Hele-Shaw cells presenting perfectly parallel plates. In this setup, the fluid-fluid interface can become unstable due to the density difference between the fluids, forming a variety of complex patterns. We study a modified, tapered version of this rotating flow problem where the cell plates are not exactly parallel, but present a constant gap gradient in the radial direction. Our analytical results indicate that the stability of the interface is significantly sensitive to the presence of the depth gradient. This allows a proper monitoring of pattern-forming features just by slightly changing the cell's taper angle. In this context, we have verified that by manipulating the sign and magnitude of the gap gradient one can favor, restrain, or even suppress the development of centrifugally driven instabilities. A taper-induced mechanism for the selection of the number of emerging fingers is also discussed.