Influence of Double Diffusive Effects on Miscible Viscous Fingering

Miscible viscous fingering classically occurs when a less viscous fluid displaces a miscible more viscous one in a porous medium. We analyze here how double diffusive effects between a slow diffusing S and a fast diffusing F component, both influencing the viscosity of the fluids at hand, affect such fingering, and, most importantly, can destabilize the classically stable situation of a more viscous fluid displacing a less viscous one. Various instability scenarios are classified in a parameter space spanned by the log-mobility ratios R(s) and R(f) of the slow and fast component, respectively, and parametrized by the ratio of diffusion coefficients δ. Numerical simulations of the full nonlinear problem confirm the existence of the predicted instability scenarios and highlight the influence of differential diffusion effects on the nonlinear fingering dynamics.