Controlling and minimizing fingering instabilities in non-Newtonian fluids

The development of the viscous fingering instability in Hele-Shaw cells has great practical and scientific importance. Recently, researchers have proposed different strategies to control the number of interfacial fingering structures, or to minimize as much as possible the amplitude of interfacial disturbances. Most existing studies address the situation in which an inviscid fluid displaces a viscous Newtonian fluid. In this work, we report on controlling and minimizing protocols considering the situation in which the displaced fluid is a non-Newtonian, power-law fluid. The necessary changes on the controlling schemes due to the shear-thinning and shear thickening nature of the displaced fluid are calculated analytically and discussed.