Transport and diffusion of material quantities on propagating interfaces via level set methods

Abstract

We develop theory and numerical algorithms to apply level set methods to problems involving the transport and diffusion of material quantities in a level set framework. Level set methods are computational techniques for tracking moving interfaces; they work by embedding the propagating interface as the zero level set of a higher dimensional function, and then approximate the solution of the resulting initial value partial differential equation using upwind finite difference schemes. The traditional level set method works in the trace space of the evolving interface, and hence disregards any parameterization in the interface description. Consequently, material quantities on the interface which themselves are transported under the interface motion are not easily handled in this framework. We develop model equations and algorithmic techniques to extend the level set method to include these problems. We demonstrate the accuracy of our approach through a series of test examples and convergence studies.