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On methods to reduce spurious currents within VOF solver frameworks. Part 1: a review of the static bubble/droplet

  • Venkatesh Inguva EMAIL logo , Andreas Schulz and Eugeny Y. Kenig
Published/Copyright: December 2, 2020
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Abstract

In two-phase flows in which the Capillary number is low, errors in the computation of the surface tension force at the interface cause Front-Capturing methods such as Volume of Fluid (VOF) and Level-Set (LS) to develop interfacial spurious currents. To better solve low Capillary number flows, special treatment is required to reduce such spurious currents. Smoothing the phase indicator field to more accurately compute the curvature or adding interfacial artificial viscosity are techniques that can treat this problem. This study explores OpenFOAM, Fluent and StarCCM+ VOF solvers for the classical case of a static bubble/droplet immersed in a continuous aqueous phase, with the focus on the ability of these solvers to adequately reduce spurious currents. The results are expected to be helpful for practicing chemical engineers who use multiphase CFD solvers in their work.


Corresponding author: Venkatesh Inguva, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Chair of Fluid Process Engineering, Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, E-mail:

Funding source: Universität Paderborn

Award Identifier / Grant number: 501100008007

Acknowledgments

We thank Rene Bertling, Alexander Zibart, Christian Wecker, Marc Wende and Seyed Alborz Manavi at Universität Paderborn for insightful discussions that contributed to the consistency of this paper.

  1. Author contribution: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: None declared.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

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Received: 2020-05-22
Accepted: 2020-11-07
Published Online: 2020-12-02

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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