Implementation of an implicit pressure–velocity coupling for the Eulerian multi-fluid model

Abstract

An implicitly coupled pressure–velocity transient scheme for the solution of the Eulerian multi-fluid model with any number of phases (MIC) was developed and implemented in OpenFOAM®. The numerical methodology is based on the phase-intensive momentum equations for the phase velocities and a pressure equation using a deferred-correction approach of the Rhie–Chow interpolation. An extension of the compact momentum interpolation method (CMI) to a system with any number of phases was developed. The developed methodology was tested against a segregated multiphase solver (MS) and a steady-state single phase solver, in cases considering up to four phases. The proposed method has proven to be more robust and accurate than the segregated counterpart, being able to converge in cases with large drag coefficients, providing time-step independent steady-state solutions.