Robust finite volume modeling of 3-D free surface flows on unstructured meshes
Matthew W. Williams, D.B. Kothe, Elbridge Gerry Puckett · 14th Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference · 1999
The numerical simulation of incompressible fluids possessing multiple distinct, immiscible fluids. are of great interest to the engineering community. These flows contain interfaces -which can merge and tear as a result of interface physics such as phase change and surface tension. The arbitrarily complex interface topologies inevitably requires an underlying Eulerian formulation. Volume tracking methods are in wide use today, having proven themselves to be topologically robust and relatively easy to implement. The basis in volume fractions also allows the straightforward incorporation of interfacial physics. The formulation of kernel-based continuum surface tension models for these methods has demonstrated acceptable results for orthogonal grids. Attaining accurate, high order results however, on unstructured meshes is necessary if surface tensiondriven flows are to. be reliably modeled within the confined; complex geometries of most indusl trial processes. In the following, we investigate the accuracy and convergence of our interface topology estimates and surface tension model on 3-D tetrahedral meshes. We use various ellipsoids to scrutinize our algorithm, which is based on a convolution (hybridj method to determine the interface unit normal and mean curvature.