Let be the porous thermal front and the polymer front. With the literal stated convention for Darcy velocity,
Therefore with . This is thermal-front retardation in Darcy flow. The region is cold injected fluid of dynamic viscosity ; is heated injected fluid of dynamic viscosity ; is oil of dynamic viscosity . The pressure drop is consequently
where . Apply the preceding fixed-pressure planar Darcy displacement calculation with replaced by this effective dynamic viscosity. The polymer-front speed is
Its position solves , and . These expressions hold while both interfaces remain in the field, the porous thermal front is sharp and stable, and . For the original constant-viscosity answer is recovered.
Sometimes a thermal retardation factor is defined relative to the pore velocity instead. Under that alternative definition one substitutes throughout. The factor of in the boxed answer follows specifically from the PDF's phrase “fraction of the Darcy speed.”