A sharp, structure preserving two-velocity model for two-phase flow

TL;DR

This paper introduces a sharp, structure-preserving two-velocity model for two-phase flow that accurately captures shear layers and interface discontinuities, improving numerical stability and physical fidelity in complex flow simulations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel implicit coupling approach and discretisation method for a two-velocity two-phase flow model, enabling sharp interface representation and accurate shear layer modelling.

Findings

Successfully models velocity discontinuities in inviscid flows

Accurately captures interface shear layers in viscous flows

Effectively simulates breaking waves and free surface instabilities

Abstract

The numerical modelling of convection dominated high density ratio two-phase flow poses several challenges, amongst which is resolving the relatively thin shear layer at the interface. To this end we propose a sharp discretisation of the two-velocity model of the two-phase Navier-Stokes equations. This results in the ability to model the shear layer, rather than resolving it, by allowing for a velocity discontinuity in the direction(s) tangential to the interface. In a previous paper (Remmerswaal and Veldman (2022), arXiv:2209.14934) we have discussed the transport of mass and momentum, where the two fluids were not yet coupled. In this paper an implicit coupling of the two fluids is proposed, which imposes continuity of the velocity field in the interface normal direction. The coupling is included in the pressure Poisson problem, and is discretised using a multidimensional generalisation of the ghost fluid method. Furthermore, a discretisation of the diffusive forces is proposed, which leads to recovering the continuous one-velocity solution as the interface shear layer is resolved. The proposed two-velocity formulation is validated and compared to our one-velocity formulation, where we consider a multitude of two-phase flow problems. It is demonstrated that the proposed two-velocity model is able to consistently, and sharply, approximate solutions to the inviscid Euler equations, where velocity discontinuities appear analytically as well. Furthermore, the proposed two-velocity model is shown to accurately model the interface shear layer in viscous problems, and it is successfully applied to the simulation of breaking waves where the model was used to sharply capture free surface instabilities.