Applying surface tension as pressure boundary condition in free surface flow analysis by moving particle simulation method

Abstract

A model that introduces surface tension as a pressure boundary condition, named the surface tension as pressure (STP) model, was developed for free surface flow analyses by the moving particle simulation (MPS) method. The STP model assigns to surface particles the liquid pressure of Laplace’s formula. The model is an alternative to previous models that apply surface tension as volume force such as the continuum surface force model. Problems that appeared when using the volume force models, such as the dependencies of calculation results on particle resolution and pressure gradient accuracy, were solved by using the STP model. Calculations predicted the theoretical values of the internal pressure of a 3D spherical droplet and the oscillation period of a 2D elliptic droplet over a wide range of surface tension coefficients and droplet sizes with errors less than 10%. Since the STP model is easy to implement, does not increase computation cost from previous models, and does not require surface reconstruction or additional marker particles, the model is suitable for practical and large-scale free surface flow problems that involve violent deformation of the liquid surface such as liquid atomization.