Simulating fluid-fluid displacement in a soft capillary tube: How compliance delays interfacial instability and bubble pinch-off

TL;DR

This study introduces a computational model to analyze how the deformability of soft capillary tubes influences fluid-fluid displacement, revealing that compliance can delay or suppress interfacial instability and bubble pinch-off, with implications for various applications.

Contribution

The paper develops a fluid-structure interaction simulation framework combining phase-field and hyperelastic models to study displacement in soft tubes, highlighting the impact of compliance on flow stability.

Findings

Tube compliance delays interfacial instability

Compliance can suppress bubble pinch-off

Flow behavior depends on tube stiffness and capillary number

Abstract

The displacement of a more viscous fluid by a less viscous immiscible fluid in confined geometries is a fundamental problem in multiphase flows. Recent experiments have shown that such fluid-fluid displacement in micro-capillary tubes can lead to interfacial instabilities and, eventually, bubble pinch-off. A critical yet often overlooked aspect of this system is the effect of the tube's deformability on the onset of interfacial instability and bubble pinch-off. Here, we present a computational fluid-structure interaction model and an algorithm to simulate this fluid-fluid displacement problem in a soft capillary tube. We use a phase-field model for the fluids and a nonlinear hyperelastic model for the solid. Our fluid-structure interaction formulation uses a boundary-fitted approach and we use isogeometric analysis for the spatial discretization. Using this computational framework, we study the effects of inlet capillary number and tube stiffness on the control of interfacial instabilities in a soft capillary tube for both imbibition and drainage. We find that tube compliance delays or even suppresses interfacial instability and bubble pinch-off, a finding that has important implications for flow in soft porous media, bio-microfluidics, and manufacturing processes.