A ternary phase-field model for two-phase flows in complex geometries

Abstract

In this work, a ternary phase-field model for two-phase flows in complex geometries is proposed. In this model, one of the three components in the classical ternary Cahn–Hilliard model is considered as the solid phase, and only one Cahn–Hilliard equation with degenerate mobility needs to be solved due to the condition of volume conservation, which is consistent with the standard phase-field model with a single-scalar variable for two-phase flows. To depict different wetting properties at the complex fluid–solid boundaries, the spreading parameters in ternary phase-field model are determined based on the Young’s law, in which the liquid–solid surface tension coefficient is assumed to be a linear function of gas–liquid surface tension coefficient and related to the contact angle and the minimum curvature of the solid surface. In addition, to achieve a high viscosity in the solid phase and preserve the velocity boundary conditions on the solid surface, the phase-field variable of the solid phase is also used to derive the modified Navier–Stokes equations. To test the present model, we further develop a consistent and conservative Hermite-moment based lattice Boltzmann method where an adjustable scale factor is introduced to improve the numerical stability, and conduct the numerical simulations of several benchmark problems. The results illustrate that present model has the good capability in the study of the two-phase flows in complex geometries.