Stability analysis of an interface between immiscible liquids in Hele-Shaw flow in the presence of a magnetic field

Hydrodynamic instabilities may occur when a viscous fluid is driven by a less viscous one through a porous medium. These penetrations are common in enhanced oil recovery, dendrite formation and aquifer flow. Recent studies have shown that the use of magnetic suspensions allow the external control of the instability. The problem is nonlinear and some further improvements of both theory and experimental observations are still needed and continue being a current source of investigation. In this paper we present a generalized Darcy law formulation in order to examine the growth of finger instabilities as a magnetic field is applied to the interface between the fluids in a Hele-Shaw cell. A new linear stability analysis is performed in the presence of magnetic effects and provides a stability criterion in terms of the non-dimensional physical parameters of the examined flow and the wavenumber of the finger disturbances. The interfacial tension inhibits small wavelength instabilities. The magnetic field contributes to the interface stability for moderate wavelength as it is applied parallel to the liquid-interface. In particular, we find an explicit expression, as a function of the susceptibility, for a critical angle between the interface and the magnetic field direction, in which its effect on the interface is neutral. We have developed a new asymptotic solution for the flow problem in a weak nonlinear regime. The first correction captures the second order nonlinear effects of the magnetic field, which tends to align the fingers with the field orientation and have a destabilizing effect. The analysis predicts that the non-linear effects at second order can counterbalance the first order stabilizing effect of a parallel magnetic field which results in a loss of effectiveness for controlling the investigated finger instabilities. The relevant physical parameters for controlling these finger instabilities are clearly identified by our non-dimensional analysis.     

Stability analysis for a new model of multi-species convection-diffusion-reaction in poroelastic tissue

We perform the linear stability analysis of a new model for poromechanical processes with inertia (formulated in mixed form using the solid deformation, fluid pressure, and total pressure) interacting with diffusing and reacting solutes convected in the medium. We find parameter regions that lead to spatio-temporal instabilities of the coupled system. The mutual dependences between deformation and diffusive patterns are of substantial relevance in the study of morphoelastic changes in bio-materials. We provide a set of computational examples in 2D and 3D (related to brain mechanobiology) that can be used to form a better understanding on how, and up to which extent, the deformations of the porous structure dictate the generation and suppression of spatial patterning dynamics, also related to the onset of mechano-chemical waves.     

Global stability of centrifugal filtration convection

A nonlinear stability analysis is performed to study the onset of convection in a fluid saturated porous layer subject to alternating direction of the centrifugal body force. By introducing a suitable energy functional, the analysis is carried out for the Darcy and the Brinkman models of flow through porous media. The nonlinear result is unconditional and its sharpest limit is determined and is compared with the corresponding linear limit. The failure of linear theory in describing the instability is established in a certain region of the parameter space where possible subcritical instabilities may arise. The stability boundaries are discussed graphically for various values of the Darcy number and comparison is made with the available known results.     

Stability of Front Solutions of the Bidomain Equation

The bidomain model is the standard model describing electrical activity of the heart. Here we study the stability of planar front solutions of the bidomain equation with a bistable nonlinearity (the bidomain Allen‐Cahn equation) in two spatial dimensions. In the bidomain Allen‐Cahn equation a Fourier multiplier operator whose symbol is a positive homogeneous rational function of degree two (the bidomain operator) takes the place of the Laplacian in the classical Allen‐Cahn equation. Stability of the planar front may depend on the direction of propagation given the anisotropic nature of the bidomain operator. We establish various criteria for stability and instability of the planar front in each direction of propagation. Our analysis reveals that planar fronts can be unstable in the bidomain Allen‐Cahn equation in striking contrast to the classical or anisotropic Allen‐Cahn equations. We identify two types of instabilities, one with respect to long‐wavelength perturbations, the other with respect to medium‐wavelength perturbations. Interestingly, whether the front is stable or unstable under long‐wavelength perturbations does not depend on the bistable nonlinearity and is fully determined by the convexity properties of a suitably defined Frank diagram. On the other hand, stability under intermediate‐wavelength perturbations does depend on the choice of bistable nonlinearity. Intermediate‐wavelength instabilities can occur even when the Frank diagram is convex, so long as the bidomain operator does not reduce to the Laplacian. We shall also give a remarkable example in which the planar front is unstable in all directions.© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Structurization of chaos

Vortex cascades of instabilities forming a core are studied. Large-scale linear waves in a fluctuating medium are described.     

Eigenvalue and Eigenvector Analysis of Stability for a Line of Traffic

Many authors have recognized that traffic under the traditional car‐following model (CFM) is subject to flow instabilities. A recent model achieves stability using bilateral control (BCM)—by looking both forward and backward [1]. (Looking back may be difficult or distracting for human drivers, but is not a problem for sensors.) We analyze the underlying systems of differential equations by studying their eigenvalues and eigenvectors under various boundary conditions. Simulations further confirm that bilateral control can avoid instabilities and reduce the chance of collisions.     

Linear and non-linear magnetoconvection in a porous medium

Linear and non-linear magnetoconvection in a sparsely packed porous medium with an imposed vertical magnetic field is studied. In the case of linear theory the conditions for direct and oscillatory modes are obtained using the normal modes. Conditions for simple and Hopf-bifurcations are also given. Using the theory of self-adjoint operator the variation of critical eigenvalue with physical parameters and boundary conditions is studied. In the case of non-linear theory the subcritical instabilities for disturbances of finite amplitude is discussed in detail using a truncated representation of the Fourier expansion. The formal eigenfunction expansion procedure in the Fourier expansion based on the eigenfunctions of the corresponding linear stability problem is justified by proving a completeness theorem for a general class of non-self-adjoint eigenvalue problems. It is found that heat transport increases with an increase in Rayleigh number, ratio of thermal diffusivity to magnetic diffusivity and porous parameter but decreases with an increase in Chandrasekhar number.     

Analytical studies on the instabilities of heterogeneous intelligent traffic flow

It has been widely reported in literature that a small perturbation in traffic flow such as a sudden deceleration of a vehicle could lead to the formation of traffic jams without a clear bottleneck. These traffic jams are usually related to instabilities in traffic flow. The applications of intelligent traffic systems are a potential solution to reduce the amplitude or to eliminate the formation of such traffic instabilities. A lot of research has been conducted to theoretically study the effect of intelligent vehicles, for example adaptive cruise control vehicles, using either computer simulation or analytical method. However, most current analytical research has only applied to single class traffic flow. To this end, the main topic of this paper is to perform a linear stability analysis to find the stability threshold of heterogeneous traffic flow using microscopic models, particularly the effect of intelligent vehicles on heterogeneous (or multi-class) traffic flow instabilities. The analytical results will show how intelligent vehicle percentages affect the stability of multi-class traffic flow.     

Stable chaos in fluctuation driven neural circuits

We study the dynamical stability of pulse coupled networks of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons against infinitesimal and finite perturbations. In particular, we compare mean versus fluctuations driven networks, the former (latter) is realized by considering purely excitatory (inhibitory) sparse neural circuits. In the excitatory case the instabilities of the system can be completely captured by an usual linear stability (Lyapunov) analysis, whereas the inhibitory networks can display the coexistence of linear and nonlinear instabilities. The nonlinear effects are associated to finite amplitude instabilities, which have been characterized in terms of suitable indicators. For inhibitory coupling one observes a transition from chaotic to non chaotic dynamics by decreasing the pulse-width. For sufficiently fast synapses the system, despite showing an erratic evolution, is linearly stable, thus representing a prototypical example of stable chaos.     

Convergence analysis for a conformal discretization of a model for precipitation and dissolution in porous media

In this paper we discuss the numerical analysis of an upscaled (core scale) model describing the transport, precipitation and dissolution of solutes in a porous medium. The particularity lies in the modeling of the reaction term, especially the dissolution term, which has a multivalued character. We consider the weak formulation for the upscaled equation and provide rigorous stability and convergence results for both the semi-discrete (time discretization) and the fully discrete schemes. In doing so, compactness arguments are employed.