A meniscus fingering instability in viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

We report experiments where a viscoelastic fingering instability develops at the free interface between air and a model viscoelastic fluid confined in a Hele-Shaw cell. The fluid is symmetrically stretched with constant velocity along two opposite directions, leading to the inflation of a two-dimensional air bubble growing from a millimetric centered hole. The instability is observed when the circumferential stretch of the inflating bubble reaches a threshold that depends on the viscoelastic properties of the fluid through the ratio of the material relaxation time to the time elapsed before the fingers start to develop. The critical stretch of the bulk fingering instability of a stretchable elastic solid [B. Saintyves, O. Dauchot, and E. Bouchaud, "Bulk elastic fingering instability in Hele-Shaw cells," Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 047801 (2013)] is recovered for large values of this ratio.