numerical study of the effect of slight compressibilty on saffman-taylor instability in miscible displacements in porous media

An iso-thermal miscible displacement flow in a rectangular homogeneous porous domain is studied through a numerical simulation study based on finite difference method# the system of equations including conservation of mass, solvent concentration and momentum, is solved for a two-dimensional domain using a semi-implicit time-stepping algorithm# the main focus is on qualitative analysis of the effect of fluid’s compressibility on breakthrough time, sweep efficiency and the length of fingers representing the severity of instability of the displacement front# the comparison of simulation results for incompressible fluid and slightly compressible fluids show that by considering the compressibility, the length of fingers is decreased and due to attenuation of instability the breakthrough time and sweep efficiency are improved#