Viscous fingering´s pattern study of substances of medical importance using a Hele-Shaw cell

CHARA OSVALDO

Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay

Congreso; XIII Meeting on Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Non linear Physics (MEDYFINOL); 2002

Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de los Andes, Chile; Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Uruguay; FCEN, UBA

The Hele-Shaw cell is a device that allows us to study the hydrodynamic behavior of two fluids. Previously it was reported that when a low viscosity fluid is pushed against other one which has a higher viscosity and it is not miscible in the first,  unstabilities take place in the interface between them. These unstabilities can be amplified forming structures denominated viscous-fingering. The aim of our work is to study the different behaviour of several substances of medical importance by means of the viscous-fingering's pattern ussing a Hele-Shaw cell. A pair of two inmiscible flows were used during the development of the experiment. One of them was always the same (Congo Red 0.5 %), and the others were compounds of high viscosity coefficient usually used in medicine as Glycerol, Propylene Glycol, Carboxymethylcellulose 1% (CMC), etc. A parameter called "p" (perimeter2/area) was defined by us in order to analize viscous-fingering's patterns in all cases. We observed that p, dp/dt and dp/dQ (where t is the time and Q is the volume flux) were significantly different among viscous-fingering's patterns generated by these compounds. Therefore, the Hele-Shaw cell, helps us to obtain reproducible data for a physical analysis about the performance of different compounds.