Assessment of diffuse-interface methods for compressible multiphase fluid flows and elastic-plastic deformation in solids

TL;DR

This paper compares three diffuse-interface methods for simulating multiphase flows and solid deformation, evaluating their ability to maintain interface properties and extend to solid interfaces, using various challenging test cases.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of three diffuse-interface methods and extends them to model interfaces between solid materials with strength.

Findings

All methods can maintain interface shape with coarse grids.

Divergence-form approach shows better conservation properties.

Gradient-form approach balances interface sharpness and stability.

Abstract

This work describes three diffuse-interface methods for the simulation of immiscible, compressible multiphase fluid flows and elastic-plastic deformation in solids. The first method is the localized-artificial-diffusivity approach of Cook (2007), Subramaniam et al., (2018), and Adler and Lele (2019), in which artificial diffusion terms are added to the conservation equations. The second method is the gradient-form approach that is based on the quasi-conservative method of Shukla et al., (2010) and Tiwari et al., (2013), in which the diffusion and sharpening terms (together called regularization terms) are added to the conservation equations. The third approach is the divergence-form approach that is based on the fully conservative method of Jain et al., (2020), in which the regularization terms are added to the conservation equations. The primary objective of this work is to compare these three methods in terms of their ability to maintain: constant interface thickness; the conservation property; and accurate interface shape for long-time integration. The second objective of this work is to consistently extend these methods to model interfaces between solid materials with strength. To assess and compare the methods, they are used to simulate a wide variety of problems, including (1) advection of an air bubble in water, (2) shock interaction with a helium bubble in air, (3) shock interaction and the collapse of an air bubble in water, and (4) Richtmyer-Meshkov instability of a copper-aluminum interface. The current work focuses on comparing these methods in the limit of relatively coarse grid resolution, which illustrates the true performance of these methods. This is because it is rarely practical to use hundreds of grid points to resolve a single bubble or drop in large-scale simulations of engineering interest.