Barriers to front propagation in laminar, three-dimensional fluid flows.

Doan, Minh; Simons, J J; Lilienthal, Katherine; Solomon, Tom; Mitchell, Kevin A · Phys Rev E · 2018

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

We present experiments on one-way barriers that block reaction fronts in a fully three-dimensional (3D) fluid flow. Fluorescent Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction fronts are imaged with laser-scanning in a laminar, overlapping vortex flow. The barriers are analyzed with a 3D extension to burning invariant manifold (BIM) theory that was previously applied to two-dimensional advection-reaction-diffusion processes. We discover tube and sheet barriers that guide the front evolution. The experimentally determined barriers are explained by BIMs calculated from a model of the flow.