On the free surface boundary of moving particle semi-implicit method for thermocapillary flow

Abstract

The moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method has great potential in dealing with free surface flow due to its Lagrangian nature. In most cases, the free surface boundary is simply served as the pressure boundary condition. In this paper, an improved MPS method is presented for thermocapillary driven free surface flow. A series of surface nodes explicitly represent the free surface boundary. The normal stress on the free surface provides the Dirichlet pressure boundary condition, while the velocity boundary condition, i.e., Marangoni stress, is enforced through the Taylor series expansion and least squares method. Meanwhile, a quasi-Lagrangian formulation is introduced to avoid particle clustering and the corresponding numerical instability by slightly modifying the advection velocity. The upwind scheme is employed for the convection term to obtain accurate and stable results. A novel constraint scheme with the divergence of provisional velocity is developed for the pressure gradient to enhance stability further. The consistency of the derived generalized boundary condition is firstly verified with a simple convergence test. Then, several numerical tests, including square patch rotation, lid-driven and square droplet oscillation, are simulated to show the improvements. Finally, thermocapillary driven flows in an open cavity without and with buoyancy effect are studied. Good agreements are obtained by comparing with reference simulations taken from literature. Heat transfer characteristics are further investigated for different dimensionless numbers, including the Rayleigh number and Marangoni number.<PE-FRONTEND>