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

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 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 the tube stiffness on the control of interfacial instabilities in a soft capillary tube for both imbibition and drainage. We find that the tube compliance delays or even suppresses the interfacial instability and bubble pinch-off—a finding that has important implications for flow in soft porous media, bio-microfluidics, and manufacturing processes.