Convective Fingering of an Autocatalytic Reaction Front
Abstract
We report experimental observations of the convection-driven fingering instability of an iodate-arsenous acid chemical reaction front. The front propagated upward in a vertical slab; the thickness of the slab was varied to control the degree of instability. We observed the onset and subsequent nonlinear evolution of the fingers, which were made visible by a {\it p}H indicator. We measured the spacing of the fingers during their initial stages and compared this to the wavelength of the fastest growing linear mode predicted by the stability analysis of Huang {\it et. al.} [{\it Phys. Rev. E}, {\bf 48}, 4378 (1993), and unpublished]. We find agreement with the thickness dependence predicted by the theory.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.patt-sol/9603003,
title = {Convective Fingering of an Autocatalytic Reaction Front},
author = {Michael R. Carey and Stephen W. Morris and Paul Kolodner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:patt-sol/9603003},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
11 pages, RevTex with 3 eps figures. To be published in Phys Rev E, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]