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Fluid dynamics

Flattened fingers

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Interfacial instabilities brought on by the penetration of one fluid into another hamper processes such as enhanced oil recovery from porous rock. But these instabilities can be suppressed with a simple gradient in fluid depth — a natural feature of many practical vessel geometries.

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Figure 1: Interfacial instabilities in Hele–Shaw cells.

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Correspondence to Anne Juel.

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Juel, A. Flattened fingers. Nature Phys 8, 706–707 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2408

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