A Volume-of-Fluid-based numerical method for multi-component mass transfer with local volume changes

Abstract

This paper addresses the direct numerical simulation of conjugate multi-component mass transfer, taking into account the accompanying local volume effect. A rigorous derivation of a one-field formulation of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations including volume effects is presented. A Volume-of-Fluid-based numerical method for the simulation of the resulting system of equations is developed and validated by comparison to analytical solutions in 1D and a semi-analytical test case in 3D. The implemented approach is applied to simulate the shrinking of a Taylor bubble with a pure gas phase in a square mini-channel and to the competing mass transfer in a multi-component mixture. The method can be used to study the local Sherwood numbers at fluid interfaces towards improving existing correlations for the prediction of mass transfer from rising bubbles.