A diffuse-interface model for N-phase flows with liquid-solid phase change

TL;DR

This paper introduces a diffuse interface model for simulating N-phase flows with solid-liquid phase change, combining phase field and enthalpy methods, and develops a coupled lattice Boltzmann approach validated by numerical tests.

Contribution

It presents a novel diffuse interface model that integrates phase change and multiphase flow simulation with a coupled LB method, ensuring reduction consistency and accuracy.

Findings

Model accurately captures phase change dynamics.

Numerical results agree with analytical solutions.

Effective for complex systems with impurities.

Abstract

In this work, we first propose a diffuse interface model for simulating N phase flows with solid liquid phase change. In this model, a phase field approach is adopted to capture multiphase fluid interfaces, and an enthalpy based formulation is used to describe the phase change. The volume changes resulting from density differences during phase change are incorporated by introducing a source term into the continuity equation. The method also satisfies the reduction consistent property, allowing it to rigorously degenerate to both the conservative phase field method for N phase flows and the classical enthalpy method for solid liquid phase change. Then a coupled lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is developed to solve this diffuse interface model. Some numerical tests, including film freezing, single droplet freezing, and compound droplet freezing are performed, and the results are in good agreement with the analytical solutions and data reported in the previous works. Furthermore, the proposed method is applied to study freezing dynamics of complex systems with insoluble impurities, capturing the interaction between the advancing freezing front and embedded impurities. It is found that the proposed diffuse interface method is accurate and efficient for studying N phase systems with phase change.