A consistent and conservative Phase-Field method for multiphase incompressible flows

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new consistent and conservative Phase-Field method for simulating multiphase incompressible flows, ensuring physical accuracy and robustness, especially with large density differences.

Contribution

It develops a novel multiphase flow model and scheme that enforce physical consistency and conservation laws, improving simulation accuracy for complex multiphase dynamics.

Findings

The method is robust for flows with large density ratios.

The scheme preserves energy and momentum at the discrete level.

Numerical tests validate the model's effectiveness in complex scenarios.

Abstract

A consistent and conservative Phase-Field method, including both the model and scheme, is developed for multiphase flows with an arbitrary number of immiscible and incompressible fluid phases. The consistency of mass conservation and the consistency of mass and momentum transport are implemented to address the issue of physically coupling the Phase-Field equation, which locates different phases, to the hydrodynamics. These two consistency conditions provide the ``optimal'' coupling because (i) the new momentum equation resulting from them is Galilean invariant and implies the kinetic energy conservation, regardless of the details of the Phase-Field equation, and (ii) failures of satisfying the second law of thermodynamics or the consistency of reduction of the multiphase flow model only result from the same failures of the Phase-Field equation but are not due to the new momentum equation. Physical interpretation of the consistency conditions and their formulations are first provided, and general formulations that are obtained from the consistency conditions and independent of the interpretation of the velocity are summarized. Several novel techniques are developed to inherit the physical properties of the multiphase flows after discretization, including the gradient-based phase selection procedure, the momentum conservative method for the surface force, and the general theorems to preserve the consistency conditions on the discrete level. Equipped with those novel techniques, a consistent and conservative scheme for the present multiphase flow model is developed and analyzed. Numerical applications demonstrate that the present model and scheme are robust and effective in studying complicated multiphase dynamics, especially for those with large-density ratios.