A free surface updating methodology for marker function‐based Eulerian free surface capturing techniques on unstructured meshes

Abstract

AbstractThe numerical modelling of non‐miscible free surface flows using an interface capturing strategy, where a marker function is used to identify each fluid, is popular in the computational science literature. As the marker function is advected by the fluid flow, the region of transition of the marker gets deformed, this being caused by the finite element discretization of the transport equation, the time‐integration scheme and the type of mesh used. The challenge is to update this region of transition at regular time intervals, without artificially creating or losing mass. A methodology is proposed to update the region of transition of the marker variable on unstructured meshes, using a local least‐squares‐based strategy which reduces numerical mass loss. It is shown that this technique proves to be an effective strategy for the updating of an advected marker variable. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.