Numerical simulation of incompressible two‐phase flows with a Boussinesq–Scriven interface stress tensor

We consider the numerical simulation of a three‐dimensional two‐phase incompressible flow with a viscous interface. The simulation is based on a sharp interface Navier–Stokes model and the Boussinesq–Scriven constitutive law for the interface viscous stress tensor. In the recent paper [Soft Matter 7, 7797–7804, 2011], a model problem with a spherical droplet in a Stokes Poiseuille flow with a Boussinesq–Scriven law for the surface viscosity has been analyzed. In that paper, relations for the droplet migration velocity are derived. We relate the results obtained with our numerical solver for the two‐phase Navier–Stokes model to these theoretical relations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows

Adaptive mesh techniques are used widely in the numerical simulations of fluid flows, and the simulation results with high accuracies are obtained by appropriate mesh adaptations. However, gas–liquid two‐phase flows are still difficult to be simulated on adaptive meshes, especially on unstructured adaptive meshes, because the physical phenomena near gas–liquid interfaces are highly complicated and in general, not modeled appropriately on adaptive meshes. In this paper, a high‐precision unstructured adaptive mesh technique for gas–liquid two‐phase flows is developed and verified/validated. In the unstructured adaptive mesh technique, the PLIC algorithm is employed to simulate interfacial dynamic behaviors and, therefore, the reconstruction method for the interfaces in refined cells is developed, which satisfies the gas and liquid volume conservations and geometrical conservations of interfaces. In addition, the physics‐based consideration is performed on the momentum calculations near interfaces, and the calculation method with gas and liquid momentum conservations is developed. For verification, the slotted‐disk revolution problem is solved. As a result, the unstructured adaptive mesh technique succeeds in reproducing the slotted‐disk shape accurately and well maintaining the shape after one full‐revolution. The dam‐break problem is also simulated and the momentum conservative calculation method succeeds in providing physically appropriate results, which show good agreements with experimental data. Therefore, it is confirmed that the developed unstructured adaptive mesh technique is very efficient to simulate gas–liquid two‐phase flows accurately. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of two‐phase flow with moving immersed boundaries

A two‐dimensional multi‐phase model for immiscible binary fluid flow including moving immersed objects is presented. The fluid motion is described by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation coupled with a phase‐field model based on van der Waals' free energy density and the Cahn–Hilliard equation. A new phase‐field boundary condition was implemented with minimization of the free energy in a direct way, to specifically improve the physical behavior of the contact line dynamics for moving immersed objects. Numerical stability and execution time were significantly improved by the use of the new boundary condition. Convergence toward the analytical solution was demonstrated for equilibrium contact angle, the Lucas–Washburn theory and Stefan's problem. The proposed model may be used for multi‐phase flow problems with moving boundaries of complex geometry, such as the penetration of fluid into a deformable, porous medium. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gas‐kinetic scheme for the modified Baer–Nunziato model of compressible two‐phase flow

Numerical methods for the Baer–Nunziato model of compressible two‐phase flow have attracted much attention in recent years. In this paper, a two‐phase Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) model is constructed in which the non‐conservative terms in the Baer–Nunziato model are considered as the external forces and the collisions both with particles of their phases and other phases are taken into consideration. On the basis of this BGK model, the so‐called modified Baer–Nunziato model is derived and a gas‐kinetic scheme for this modified model is presented. The distribution functions are constructed at the cell interface based on the integral solutions of the BGK equations for both phases. Then, numerical fluxes can be obtained by taking moments of the distribution functions, and non‐conservative terms are explicitly introduced into the construction of numerical fluxes. In this method, not only the iterative processes in the exact Riemann solvers are eliminated but also the collisions with the particles of other phases are taken into account. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preconditioned Krylov subspace methods used in solving two‐dimensional transient two‐phase flows

This paper investigates the performance of preconditioned Krylov subspace methods used in a previously presented two‐fluid model developed for the simulation of separated and intermittent gas–liquid flows. The two‐fluid model has momentum and mass balances for each phase. The equations comprising this model are solved numerically by applying a two‐step semi‐implicit time integration procedure. A finite difference numerical scheme with a staggered mesh is used. Previously, the resulting linear algebraic equations were solved by a Gaussian band solver. In this study, these algebraic equations are also solved using the generalized minimum residual (GMRES) and the biconjugate gradient stabilized (Bi‐CGSTAB) Krylov subspace iterative methods preconditioned with incomplete LU factorization using the ILUT(p, τ) algorithm. The decrease in the computational time using the iterative solvers instead of the Gaussian band solver is shown to be considerable. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical study of breaking waves by a two‐phase flow model

A two‐phase flow model, which solves the flow in the air and water simultaneously, is presented for modelling breaking waves in deep and shallow water, including wave pre‐breaking, overturning and post‐breaking processes. The model is based on the Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations with the k ?ε turbulence model. The governing equations are solved by the finite volume method in a Cartesian staggered grid and the partial cell treatment is implemented to deal with complex geometries. The SIMPLE algorithm is utilised for the pressure‐velocity coupling and the air‐water interface is modelled by the interface capturing method via a high resolution volume of fluid scheme. The numerical model is validated by simulating overturning waves on a sloping beach and over a reef, and deep‐water breaking waves in a periodic domain, in which good agreement between numerical results and available experimental measurements for the water surface profiles during wave overturning is obtained. The overturning jet, air entrainment and splash‐up during wave breaking have been captured by the two‐phase flow model, which demonstrates the capability of the model to simulate free surface flow and wave breaking problems.Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cahn–Hilliard modeling of particles suspended in two‐phase flows

In this paper, we present a model for the dynamics of particles suspended in two‐phase flows by coupling the Cahn–Hilliard theory with the extended finite element method (XFEM). In the Cahn–Hilliard model the interface is considered to have a small but finite thickness, which circumvents explicit tracking of the interface. For the direct numerical simulation of particle‐suspended flows, we incorporate an XFEM, in which the particle domain is decoupled from the fluid domain. To cope with the movement of the particles, a temporary ALE scheme is used for the mapping of field variables at the previous time levels onto the computational mesh at the current time level. By combining the Cahn–Hilliard model with the XFEM, the particle motion at an interface can be simulated on a fixed Eulerian mesh without any need of re‐meshing. The model is general, but to demonstrate and validate the technique, here the dynamics of a single particle at a fluid–fluid interface is studied. First, we apply a small disturbance on a particle resting at an interface between two fluids, and investigate the particle movement towards its equilibrium position. In particular, we are interested in the effect of interfacial thickness, surface tension, particle size and viscosity ratio of two fluids on the particle movement towards its equilibrium position. Finally, we show the movement of a particle passing through multiple layers of fluids. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of single‐ and two‐phase flows on sliding unstructured meshes using finite volume method

The paper presents an efficient finite volume method for unstructured grids with rotating sliding parts composed of arbitrary polyhedral elements for both single‐ and two‐phase flows. Mathematical model used in computations is based on the ensemble averaged conservation equations. These equations are solved for each phase and in case of single‐phase flow reduce to the transient Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes (TRANS) equations. Transient flow induced by rotating impellers is thus resolved in time. The use of unstructured grids allows an easy and flexible meshing for the entire flow domain. Polyhedral cell volumes are created on the arbitrary mesh interface placed between rotating and static parts. Cells within the rotating parts move each time step and the new faces are created on the arbitrary interfaces only, while the rest of the domain remain ‘topologically’ unchanged. Implicit discretization scheme allows a wide range of time‐step sizes, which further reduce the computational effort. Special attention is given to the interpolation practices used for the reconstruction of the face quantities. Mass fluxes are recalculated at the beginning of each time step by using an interpolation scheme, which enhances the coupling between the pressure and velocity fields. The model has been implemented into the commercially available CFD code AVL SWIFT (AVL AST, SWIFT Manual 3.1, AVL List GmbH, Graz, Austria, 2002). Single‐phase flow in a mixing vessel stirred by a six‐bladed Rushton‐type turbine and two‐phase flow in aerated stirred vessel with the four‐blade Rushton impeller are simulated. The results are compared with the available experimental data, and good agreement is observed. The proposed algorithm is proved to be both stable and accurate for single‐phase as well as for the two‐phase flows calculations. Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An unfitted interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for incompressible Navier–Stokes two‐phase flow

A discontinuous Galerkin method for the solution of the immiscible and incompressible two‐phase flow problem based on the nonsymmetric interior penalty method is presented. Therefore, the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation is solved for a domain decomposed into two subdomains with different values of viscosity and density as well as a singular surface tension force. On the basis of a piecewise linear approximation of the interface, meshes for both phases are cut out of a structured mesh. The discontinuous finite elements are defined on the resulting Cartesian cut‐cell mesh and may therefore approximate the discontinuities of the pressure and the velocity derivatives across the interface with high accuracy. As the mesh resolves the interface, regularization of the density and viscosity jumps across the interface is not required. This preserves the local conservation property of the velocity field even in the vicinity of the interface and constitutes a significant advantage compared with standard methods that require regularization of these discontinuities and cannot represent the jumps and kinks in pressure and velocity. A powerful subtessellation algorithm is incorporated to allow the usage of standard time integrators (such as Crank–Nicholson) on the time‐dependent mesh. The presented discretization is applicable to both the two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional cases. The performance of our approach is demonstrated by application to a two‐dimensional benchmark problem, allowing for a thorough comparison with other numerical methods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Direct numerical simulation of decaying two‐dimensional turbulence in a no‐slip square box using smoothed particle hydrodynamics

This paper explores the application of SPH to a DNS of decaying turbulence in a two‐dimensional no‐slip wall‐bounded domain. In this bounded domain, the inverse energy cascade, and a net torque exerted by the boundary, results in a spontaneous spin‐up of the fluid, leading to a typical end state of a large monopole vortex that fills the domain. The SPH simulations were compared against published results using a high‐accuracy pseudo‐spectral code. Ensemble averages of the kinetic energy, enstrophy and average vortex wavenumber compared well against the pseudo‐spectral results, as did the evolution of the total angular momentum of the fluid. However, although the pseudo‐spectral results emphasised the importance of the no‐slip boundaries as generators of long‐lived coherent vortices in the flow, no such generation was seen in the SPH results. Vorticity filaments produced at the boundary were always dissipated by the flow shortly after separating from the boundary layer. The kinetic energy spectrum of the SPH results was calculated using an SPH Fourier transform that operates directly on the disordered particles. The ensemble kinetic energy spectrum showed the expected k^?3 scaling over most of the inertial range. However, the spectrum flattened at smaller length scales (initially less than 7.5 particle spacings and growing in size over time), indicating an excess of small‐scale kinetic energy.Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discretizing two‐dimensional complex fractured fields for incompressible two‐phase flow

A method is introduced to discretize irregular and complex two‐dimensional fractured media. The geometry of the fractured media is first analysed by searching and treating the complex configurations. Based on that, the method generated a good mesh quality and allows for including finer grids. An incompressible two‐phase flow problem is solved to compare the developed method and a public method based on the approximation of a 1D fracture by the edges of a 2D finite element grid of the porous media. The comparison showed that the developed method (i) represents better the fractured domain by maintaining the geometric integrity of input surfaces and geologic data, (ii) provides, for sample and complex fractured domains, excellent and more accurate results, and (iii) is much less sensitive to the grid sizes. Furthermore, the method has to be more efficient than the other methods for transport problems and has to provide better predictable results; this is mainly based on point (ii) and because the method produces optimal triangular grids. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Advection upwinding splitting method to solve a compressible two‐fluid model

In this study, the advection upwinding splitting method (AUSM) is modified for the resolution of two‐phase mixtures with interfaces. The compressible two‐fluid model proposed by Saurel and Abgrall is chosen as the model equations. Dense and dilute phases are described in terms of the volume fraction and equations of state to represent multi‐phase mixtures. Test cases involving an air–water shock tube, water faucet, and dilute particulate turbulent flows through a 90° bend are used to verify the current work. It is shown that the AUSM based on flux differences (AUSMD) contains the mechanism to correctly capture the contact discontinuity and interfaces between phases. In addition, a successful application to dilute particulate turbulence flows by the AUSMD is demonstrated. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A further work on multi‐phase two‐fluid approach for compressible multi‐phase flows

This paper is to continue our previous work Niu (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2001; 36 :351–371) on solving a two‐fluid model for compressible liquid–gas flows using the AUSMDV scheme. We first propose a pressure–velocity‐based diffusion term originally derived from AUSMDV scheme Wada and Liou (SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 1997; 18 (3):633—657) to enhance its robustness. The scheme can be applied to gas and liquid fluids universally. We then employ the stratified flow model Chang and Liou (J. Comput. Physics 2007; 225 :240–873) for spatial discretization. By defining the fluids in different regions and introducing inter‐phasic force on cell boundary, the stratified flow model allows the conservation laws to be applied on each phase, and therefore, it is able to capture fluid discontinuities, such as the fluid interfaces and shock waves, accurately. Several benchmark tests are studied, including the Ransom's Faucet problem, 1D air–water shock tube problems, 2D shock‐water column and 2D shock‐bubble interaction problems. The results indicate that the incorporation of the new dissipation into AUSM⁺‐up scheme and the stratified flow model is simple, accurate and robust enough for the compressible multi‐phase flows. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of an efficient statistical volumes of fluid–Lagrangian particle tracking coupling method

The breakup of a liquid jet into irregular liquid structures and droplets leading to the formation of a dilute spray has been simulated numerically. To overcome the shortcomings of certain numerical methods in specific flow regimes, a combined approach has been chosen. The intact liquid core, its primary breakup and the dense spray regime are simulated using the volumes of fluid (VOF) method in combination with LES, whereas the Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT) approach in the LES context is applied to the dilute spray regime and the secondary breakup of droplets. A method has been developed to couple both simulation types on a statistical basis. This statistical coupling approach (SCA) reflects the dominating physical mechanisms of the two‐phase flow in each regime to a high degree. The main benefit of the SCA is computational efficiency as compared with the more straightforward approach where one follows each structure, denoted here as the direct coupling approach. The computational benefits stem from the reduction of computational time since the VOF simulation is run only until statistical convergence and not during the whole spray development. A second benefit using the SCA is the possibility to use the stochastic parcel method in the LPT simulation whereby a large number of droplets may be handled. The coupling approach is applied to the atomization of a fuel jet in a high pressure chamber, demonstrating the gain of efficiency of the SCA as compared with direct coupling approach. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Development of temporal and spatial high‐order schemes for two‐fluid seven‐equation two‐pressure model and its applications in two‐phase flow benchmark problems

Current existing main nuclear thermal‐hydraulics (T‐H) system analysis codes, such as RALAP5, TRACE, and CATHARE, play a crucial role in the nuclear engineering field for the design and safety analysis of nuclear reactor systems. However, two‐fluid model used in these T‐H system analysis codes is ill posed, easily leading to numerical oscillations, and the classical first‐order methods for temporal and special discretization are widely employed for numerical simulations, yielding excessive numerical diffusion. Two‐fluid seven‐equation two‐pressure model is of particular interest due to the inherent well‐posed advantage. Moreover, high‐order accuracy schemes have also attracted great attention to overcome the challenge of serious numerical diffusion induced by low‐order time and space schemes for accurately simulating nuclear T‐H problems. In this paper, the semi‐implicit solution algorithm with high‐order accuracy in space and time is developed for this well‐posed two‐fluid model and the robustness and accuracy are verified and assessed against several important two‐phase flow benchmark tests in the nuclear engineering T‐H field, which include two linear advection problems, the oscillation problem of the liquid column, the Ransom water faucet problem, the reversed water faucet problem, and the two‐phase shock tube problem. The following conclusions are achieved. (1) The proposed semi‐implicit solution algorithm is robust in solving two‐phase flows, even for fast transients and discontinuous solutions. (2) High‐order schemes in both time and space could prevent excessive numerical diffusion effectively and the numerical simulation results are more accurate than those of first‐order time and space schemes, which demonstrates the advantage of using high‐order schemes.     

On coupling the Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations with two‐equation turbulence model equations

Two methods for coupling the Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations with the q–ω turbulence model equations on structured grid systems have been studied; namely a loosely coupled method and a strongly coupled method. The loosely coupled method first solves the Navier–Stokes equations with the turbulent viscosity fixed. In a subsequent step, the turbulence model equations are solved with all flow quantities fixed. On the other hand, the strongly coupled method solves the Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes equations and the turbulence model equations simultaneously. In this paper, numerical stabilities of both methods in conjunction with the approximated factorization‐alternative direction implicit method are analysed. The effect of the turbulent kinetic energy terms in the governing equations on the convergence characteristics is also studied. The performance of the two methods is compared for several two‐ and three‐dimensional problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strongly coupled simulation of fluid–structure interaction in a Francis hydroturbine

This work simulates a complex fluid flow in fluid–structure interaction (FSI). The flow under consideration is governed by Navier–Stokes equations for incompressible viscous fluids and modeled with the finite volume method. Large eddy simulation is used to simulate the unsteady turbulent flow. The structure is represented by a finite element formulation. The present work introduces a strongly coupled partitioned approach that is applied to complex flow in fluid machinery. In this approach, the fluid and structure equations are solved separately using different solvers, but are implicitly coupled into one single module based on sensitivity analysis of the important displacement and stress modes. The applied modes and their responses are used to build up a reduced‐order model. The proposed model is used to predict the unsteady flow fields of a 3D complete passage, involving in stay, guide vanes, and runner blades, for a Francis hydro turbine and FSI is considered. The computational results show that a fairly good convergence solution is achieved by using the reduced‐order model that is based on only a few displacement and stress modes, which largely reduces the computational cost, compared with traditional approaches. At the same time, a comparison of the numerical results of the model with available experimental data validates the methodology and assesses its accuracy. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.