Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of Surface Tension Dominated Vortices Behaviour in Two-Phase Mixing Layer

Abstract

Surface tension dominating mixings and interfacial interactions are major phenomena of multiphase flow in microchannels and a variety of micro mixers. Such phenomena are concerned with interfacial interactions not only at fluid-solid interface but also at different fluids/phases interfaces. In this paper, vortices behaviours in a mixing layer of two immiscible fluids are studied numerically. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is employed to simulat surface tension dominated mixing process. As a mesoscopic numerical method, the LBM has many advantages, which include the ability of incorporating microscopic interactions, the simplicity of programming and the nature of parallel algorithm and is therefore ideal for simulating multiphase flow. In this article, the index function methodology of the LBM is employed to simulate surface tension dominated vertices behaviour in a two-dimensional immiscible two-phase mixing layer. The initial interface between two-fluids is evenly distributed around the midpoint in vertical direction. Different velocity perturbations which consist of a basic wave and a series of sub-harmonic waves are forced at the entrance of a rectangular mixing layer of the flow field. By changing the strength of surface tension and the combinations of perturbation waves, the effects of the surface tension and the velocity perturbation on vortices merging are investigated. The vortices contours and frequency spectrums are used to analyse the mechanism of vortices merging. Some interesting phenomena, which do not take place in a single-phase mixing layer, are observed and the corresponding mechanism is discussed in details.