On the effect of the body force on the symmetry breaking in miscible two‐fluid channel flow

Abstract

The two‐dimensional flow field is numerically investigated using a compact finite difference and a pseudo‐spectral method when two fluids with different physical properties are mixing under gravity as well as flow rate. The gravity and the viscous mobility affect the fingering instability, i.e. the mixing range shrinks much at the large viscous mobility or the strong gravity. When the gravitation acts parallel to the main stream, the flow decelerates or accelerates according to its direction. The fingertip velocity is exactly expressed by a pure cosine function and especially invariant when the gravity acts along the −y direction at the high Peclet number. The maximum and fingertip velocities at the very low Peclet number are nearly symmetric with respect to the −y direction perpendicular to the main flow direction x. When the gravity acts along the −y direction, the flow field shows the asymmetry, and a pair of vortices is generated at both the very high Peclet number and less viscous mobility number. As the viscous mobility becomes large, the vortex scale enlarges at the small Peclet number, while the vortices are slightly destroyed at the relatively high Peclet number. As the gravitational angle changes clockwise from downstream to upstream, a pair of vortices evolves through a process of asymmetry.