An experimental and numerical investigation of container filling with viscous liquids

This work is concerned with a study of container filling, with particular reference to the food industry. A computer code was developed and an experimental rig was built, the main purpose being to validate the software. The computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code, called GENSMAC, was specifically designed for relatively slow viscous flow and was capable of capturing multiple free surfaces. This paper focuses on the design of the experimental rig and how it functions. The visual output of the code is then compared with high‐speed photographic shots of glucose syrup being jetted into a tub for a selected number of flow regimes. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The solution of two‐dimensional free‐surface problems using automatic mesh generation

A new method is described for the iterative solution of two‐dimensional free‐surface problems, with arbitrary initial geometries, in which the interior of the domain is represented by an unstructured, triangular Eulerian mesh and the free surface is represented directly by the piecewise‐quadratic edges of the isoparametric quadratic‐velocity, linear‐pressure Taylor–Hood elements. At each time step, the motion of the free surface is computed explicitly using the current velocity field and, once the new free‐surface location has been found, the interior nodes of the mesh are repositioned using a continuous deformation model that preserves the original connectivity. In the event that the interior of the domain must be completely remeshed, a standard Delaunay triangulation algorithm is used, which leaves the initial boundary discretisation unchanged. The algorithm is validated via the benchmark viscous flow problem of the coalescence of two infinite cylinders of equal radius, in which the motion is due entirely to the action of capillary forces on the free surface. This problem has been selected for a variety of reasons: the initial and final (steady state) geometries differ considerably; in the passage from the former to the latter, large free‐surface curvatures—requiring accurate modelling—are encountered; an analytical solution is known for the location of the free surface; there exists a large body of literature on alternative numerical simulations. A novel feature of the present work is its geometric generality and robustness; it does not require a priori knowledge of either the evolving domain geometry or the solution contained therein. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cusped ripples at the plane surface of a viscous liquid

Summary We study the time-evolution of periodical ripples of a viscous liquid at the plane free surface under the action of a distant pure straining flow. We neglect inertial forces (Stokes flow) and include surface tension effects. The solutions for a contracting surface and constant strain rate show that the ripples may develop near-cusps during a stage of the evolution, though later the free surface inevitably asymptotically tends to a smooth plane with vanishing ripples due to the action of capillarity. We obtain the condition for cusp formation in this intermediate stage in terms of the initial capillary number and aspect ratio. If the capillary number is kept constant, the surface tends to shrink through a succession of self-similar trochoidal shapes, whose aspect ratio is given by the capillary number. Received 23 March 1998, accepted for publication 23 July 1998     

Free‐surface flow over a semi‐circular obstruction

The fully non‐linear free‐surface flow over a semi‐circular bottom obstruction was studied numerically in two dimensions using a mixed Eulerian–Lagrangian formulation. The problem was solved in the time domain that allows the prediction of a number of transient phenomena, such as the generation of upstream advancing solitary waves, as well as the simulation of wave breaking. A parametric study was performed for a range of values of the depth‐based Froude number up to 2.5 and non‐dimensional obstacle heights, α up to 0.9. When wave breaking does not occur, three distinct flow regimes were identified: subcritical, transcritical and supercritical. When breaking occurs it may be of any type: spilling, plunging or surging. In addition, for values of the Froude number close to 1, the upstream solitary waves break. A systematic study was undertaken to define the boundaries of each type of breaking and non‐breaking pattern and to determine the drag and lift coefficients, free‐surface profile characteristics and transient behavior. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING OF FREE SURFACE VISCOELASTIC FLOWS WITH PARTICULAR APPLICATION TO RUBBER MIXING

Internal mixers are used extensively in industry for mixing the components of rubber compounds. In these operations, in order to achieve effective mixing, the mixer chamber is always partially filled. This inevitably results in the appearance of multiple free surfaces in flow fields inside rubber mixer chambers. Mathematical modelling of such a flow regime is not a simple task and requires a great deal of effort. Traditional free surface flow-modelling techniques, which are mainly based on the use of volume-of-fluid or pseudo-density approaches in an Eulerian framework, are not flexible enough to cope with this problem. In this paper we describe a new method for the numerical modelling of free surface flows. In this method the pseudo-density approach is extended to a special Lagrangian framework along the trajectories of the fluid particles. We show that the developed scheme can very effectively simulate viscoelastic free surface flows encountered in rubber-mixing processes.     

HIGH-ORDER SCHEMES IN BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHODS FOR TRANSIENT NON-LINEAR FREE SURFACE PROBLEMS

In this paper the boundary element method is applied to solve transient non-linear free surface flow problems formulated from potential theory. For the temporal evolution a high-order time-stepping procedure based on a truncated forward-time Taylor series expansion is compared with the classical Runge–Kutta technique. The numerical code for both two-dimensional and axisymmetric configurations has been successfully implemented. Emphasis in the paper is placed on describing the analytical development achieved by the use of Maple software. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. j. numer. methods fluids, 24: 1049–1072, 1997.     

旋涡与水面相互作用研究

采用Ｎａｖｉｅｒ－Ｓｔｏｋｅｓ方程的有限差分数值解来研究水下生成的旋涡在浮升过程中与水面的相互作用,旋涡的初始模型为Ｏｓｅｅｎ涡。数值模拟给出了在旋涡与水面相互作用过程中,水面形状和涡量场的演化,还讨论了Ｆｒｏｕｄｅ数、Ｒｅｙｎｏｌｄｓ数和Ｗｅｂｅｒ数对水面变形的影响。