Comparison of surface tension models for the simulation of two-phase flow in an ISPH-FVM coupling method

Abstract

In the simulation of two-phase flow dominated by surface tension, accurate surface tension modeling is beneficial to better reproduce and understand the mechanism of interphase flow. In this paper, based on an ISPH-FVM coupling framework, three different surface tension models are implemented and tested respectively, including the generally used continuum surface force (CSF) model, the continuous surface stress (CSS) model and the height function (HF) model. In the present ISPH-FVM coupling framework, the ISPH particle approximate interpolation technique combined with a volume fraction correction scheme is employed to ensure the volume conservation in the computational domain during the information transfer between particles and grids. Meanwhile, the three surface tension models are discretized and calculated by the volume fraction defined on the FVM grid. The volume fraction of the FVM grid is obtained by approximate interpolation of ISPH particles within the grid support domain. Several benchmark cases are tested to verify the performance of three surface tension models in the ISPH-FVM coupling method. The results show that the CSF model and CSS model have less spurious currents and better robustness than HF model under the present coupling method. In addition, the CSF model and CSS model can simulate the flow regime involving complex interface topology changes more accurately than HF model.