Optimal fluid stretching for mixing-limited reactions in rough channel flows

Abstract

We study the reactive displacement of two miscible fluids in channel flows and establish a quantitative link between fluid stretching and chemical reactivity. At the mixing interface, the two fluids react according to the instantaneous irreversible bimolecular reaction $A + B \rightarrow C$ . We simulate the advection–diffusion–reaction problem using a random walk based reactive particle method that is free of numerical dispersion. The relative contributions of stretching and diffusion to mixing-limited reaction is controlled by changing the Péclet number, and the channel roughness is also systematically varied. We observe optimal ranges of fluid stretching that maximize reactivity, which are captured by a Lagrangian stretching measure based on an effective time period that honours the stretching history. We show that the optimality originates from the competition between the enhanced mixing by fluid stretching and the mass depletion of the reactants. We analytically derive the spatial distribution of reaction products using a lamellar formulation and successfully predict the optimal ranges of fluid stretching, which are consistent across different levels of channel roughness. These findings provide a mechanistic understanding of how the interplay between fluid stretching, diffusion and channel roughness controls mixing-limited reactions in rough channel flows, and show how reaction hot spots can be predicted from the concept of optimal fluid stretching.