New finite-element/finite-volume level set formulation for modelling two-phase incompressible flows

  • Authors:

  • Sergey V. Shepel;Brian L. Smith

  • Affiliations:

  • Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland and Thermal-Hydraulics Laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland;Thermal-Hydraulics Laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational Physics
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We present a new level set method for modelling two-phase incompressible flows with moving interface boundaries. The method is based on a finite element (FE) treatment of the equations governing the motion of the interface separating two immiscible phases, and a finite volume (FV) description of the fluid flow equations. The performance of the method is demonstrated and validated using several sample problems involving two-phase, isothermal flows with density ratios of the order of 102-103, and viscosity ratios as high as 7 × 104. Surface tension effects are included. The present formulation displays good convergence properties, and it is relatively simple to program. This allows the method to be implemented into existing commercial FV-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, thereby extending their application range. We have successfully implemented the method in the code CFX-4.