An accurate adaptive solver for surface-tension-driven interfacial flows

  • Authors:

  • Stéphane Popinet

  • Affiliations:

  • National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 14-901, Kilbirnie, Wellington 6003, New Zealand

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational Physics
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

A method combining an adaptive quad/octree spatial discretisation, geometrical Volume-Of-Fluid interface representation, balanced-force continuum-surface-force surface-tension formulation and height-function curvature estimation is presented. The extension of these methods to the quad/octree discretisation allows adaptive variable resolution along the interface and is described in detail. The method is shown to recover exact equilibrium (to machine accuracy) between surface-tension and pressure gradient in the case of a stationary droplet, irrespective of viscosity and spatial resolution. Accurate solutions are obtained for the classical test case of capillary wave oscillations. An application to the capillary breakup of a jet of water in air further illustrates the accuracy and efficiency of the method. The source code of the implementation is freely available as part of the Gerris flow solver.