Numerical simulations of phase separation dynamics in a water–oil–surfactant system

Abstract

We have studied numerically the dynamics of the microphase separation of a water–oil–surfactant system. We developed an efficient and accurate numerical method for solving the two-dimensional time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau model with two order parameters. The numerical method is based on a conservative, second-order accurate, and implicit finite-difference scheme. The nonlinear discrete equations were solved by using a nonlinear multigrid method. There is, at most, a first-order time step constraint for stability. We demonstrated numerically the convergence of our scheme and presented simulations of phase separation to show the efficiency and accuracy of the new algorithm.