Computer simulation for viscous fingering occurred in a Hele-Shaw cell

Abstract

The viscous fingering that occurred in a Hele-Shaw cell was simulated using a modified DLA model with sticking probability on off-lattices. The present computer algorithm can also simulate the morphological evolution of viscous fingering from skeletal patterns to fleshy patterns. Both the shapes and the fractal dimension of fractal clusters can be obtained and they are in good agreement with experiments. The present work indicates that the effective fractal dimension of viscous fingering decreases and the corresponding morphologies of finger growth vary from a fleshy pattern with great fractal dimension to a skeletal pattern with low fractal dimension for decreasing model parameter A or increasing model parameter B. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH.