Modeling of Heat Transfer Across the Interface in Two-Fluid Flows

Abstract

A model is presented in this article to deal with heat transfer across the interface separating two immiscible fluids. It is suitable to be incorporated into interface-tracking methods, such as volume-of-fluid (VOF) methods, because a sharp interface is available in these approaches. The temperature at the interface and the heat flux through it are calculated in such a way that the continuity of the two properties at the contact surface is satisfied explicitly. With use of these values, the temperature either at the centroid or on a face of the interface cell can be estimated, which serves as Dirichlet boundary condition for the energy equation. The temperature field is then calculated by solving the energy equations for the two fluids simultaneously in an implicit way. This method is first assessed via testing on two heat conduction problems in which two solids are in contact. Good agreement between numerical solutions and theory is obtained. To demonstrate its capability, it is applied to two kinds of heat transfer problems, one being the collapse of a heated water column in a cavity, and the other the falling of a molten tin droplet in an oil tank. The effect of fluid flow on the heat transfer is clearly illustrated.