A volume-tracking method for incompressible multifluid flows with large density variations

Abstract

A numerical technique (FGVT) for solving the time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in fluid flows with large density variations is presented for staggered grids. Mass conservation is based on a volume tracking method and incorporates a piecewise-linear interface reconstruction on a grid twice as fine as the velocity pressure grid. It also uses a special flux-corrected transport algorithm for momentum advection, a multigrid algorithm for solving a pressure-correction equation and a surface tension algorithm that is robust and stable. In principle, the method conserves both mass and momentum exactly, and maintains extremely sharp fluid interfaces. Applications of the numerical method to prediction of two-dimensional bubble rise in an inclined channel and a bubble bursting through an interface are presented