Analytical interface reconstruction algorithms in the PLIC‐VOF method for 3D polyhedral unstructured meshes

Abstract

SummaryPiecewise linear interface calculation (PLIC) schemes have been extensively employed in the volume‐of‐fluid (VOF) method for interface capturing in numerical simulations of multiphase flows. Polyhedral unstructured meshes are often adopted due to their geometric flexibility and superiority in gradient calculation. Four analytical interface reconstruction algorithms in the PLIC‐VOF method for arbitrary convex polyhedral cells have been proposed in this study. The plane interface at a given orientation within a polyhedral cell is located by four different analytical techniques. They have been tested successfully for six different geometric shapes that are common in polyhedral meshes. The computational efficiencies of the algorithms have been compared with two other published schemes in the literature. The proposed algorithms have been shown to yield smaller truncation errors with reduction in computational complexity. A numerical simulation of a 3D dam‐breaking problem has been successfully performed using the proposed interface reconstruction scheme on a polyhedral mesh. The percentage of the overall computational time consumed has been assessed to justify its optimization in a real multiphase flow simulation.