Transport of emulsions in heterogeneous environments

We study the transport of emulsions through disordered media. Taking advantage of the microfluidic-sticker technique, we produce mono-disperse emulsions and investigate their traffic in random lattices of trapping sites. We combine concepts and tools from fluid mechanics and depinning physics to elucidate the collective mobilization of fluid ganglia in random environments. Preliminary results suggest a continuous transition from a creep to a continuous flow regime via avalanches and the formation of a channel.