Volume of fluid methods for immiscible-fluid and free-surface flows
Journal article, 2008

This article reviews and analyzes a number of numerical methods to track interfaces in multiphase flows. Several interface tracking methods can be found in literature: the level-set method, the marker particle method, the front tracking method and the volume of fluid method (VOF) to name a few. The volume of fluid method has an advantage of being conceptually simple, reasonably accurate and phenomena such as interface breakup and coalescence are inherently included. Over the years a number of different techniques to implement the VOF method have been devised. This article gives a basic introduction to the VOF method and focuses on four VOF methods: flux-corrected transport (FCT) by Boris et al. [J.P. Boris, D.L. Book, Flux-corrected transport. I: SHASTA, a fluid transport algorithm that works, J. Comput. Phys. 11 (1973) 38-69], Lagrangian piecewise linear interface construction (L-PLIC) by van Wachem and Schouten [B.G.M. van Wachem, J.C. Schouten, Experimental validation of 3-d Lagrangian VOF model: bubble shape and rise velocity, AIChE 48 (12) (2002) 2744-2753], Compressive interface capturing scheme for arbitrary meshes (CICSAM) by Ubbink [O. Ubbink, Numerical prediction of two fluid systems with sharp interfaces, Ph.D. Thesis, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, 1997] and inter-gamma scheme by Jasak and Weller [H. Jasak, H.G. Weller, Interface-tracking capabilities of the InterGamma differencing scheme, Technical Report, Imperial College, University of London, 1995]. A detailed description of these schemes is given and implemented into an in-house fully coupled solver. Further, the performance of these schemes is examined employing a number of tests to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Their advantages and limitations are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

free surfaces

VOF METHOD

interfaces

schemes

advection

CORRECTED TRANSPORT

TRANSPORT ALGORITHM

volume of fluid method (VOF)

Author

Vinay Gopala

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics

Berend van Wachem

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics

Chemical Engineering Journal

1385-8947 (ISSN)

Vol. 141 1-3 204-221

Subject Categories

Mechanical Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.cej.2007.12.035

More information

Created

10/7/2017