Dewetting dynamics of anisotropic particles -- a level set numerical approach

TL;DR

This paper develops a level set numerical method to simulate the dewetting dynamics of anisotropic particles, allowing for natural handling of topology changes and applying convolution kernels to approximate anisotropic interfacial energies.

Contribution

It introduces an anisotropic extension of thresholding methods for mean curvature flow, enabling more accurate modeling of anisotropic interfacial energies in material science applications.

Findings

The proposed algorithm effectively simulates anisotropic dewetting dynamics.

The method handles topology changes like merging and splitting naturally.

Numerical properties of the scheme are thoroughly analyzed.

Abstract

We extend thresholding methods for numerical realization of mean curvature flow on obstacles to the anisotropic setting where interfacial energy depends on the orientation of the interface. This type of schemes treats the interface implicitly, which supports natural implementation of topology changes, such as merging and splitting, and makes the approach attractive for applications in material science. The main tool in the new scheme are convolution kernels developed in previous studies, that approximate the given anisotropy in a nonlocal way. We provide a detailed report on the numerical properties of the proposed algorithm.