Modeling surface tension using a ghost fluid technique within a volume of fluid formulation

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2004

OSTI ID:977421

Francois, M M ^[1]; Kothe, D B ^[2]; Cummins, S J ^[3]

---

1. Marianne M.
2. Douglas B.
3. Sharen J.

Ghost fluid methods (GFM) are a viable approach for imposing sharp boundary conditions on interfaces that are arbitrarily embedded within the computational mesh. All GFM to date are formulated with an interface distance function that resides within a level-set (LS) framework. Recently we proposed a technique for reconstructing distance functions from volume fractions. This technique enables the exploitation of GFM within a volume of fluid formulation for modeling an interfacial phenomenon like surface tension. Combining GFM with a volume of fluid (VOF) formulation is attractive because of the VOF method's superior mass conservation and because of the ability of GFM to maintain sharp jump conditions. The continuum surface tension force (CSF) method, however, has the propensity to produce smooth jump. In the following, the combined VOF-GFM and more classical VOF-CSF formulations are compared and contrasted. Static and dynamic numerical results are used to illustrate our findings and support our claims.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• OSTI ID: 977421
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-04-0413; LA-UR-04-413
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
INTERFACES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
SURFACE TENSION