integral.h

Integral formulation for surface tension

Integral formulation for surface tension

This page has moved here.

The surface tension \sigma will be associated to each levelset tracer. This is done easily by adding the following field attributes.

attribute {
  double sigma;
}

event defaults (i = 0) {

Surface tension is a source term in the right-hand-side of the evolution equation for the velocity of the centered Navier–Stokes solver i.e. it is an acceleration. If necessary, we allocate a new vector field to store it.

  if (is_constant(a.x)) {
    a = new face vector;
    foreach_face()
      a.x[] = 0.;
    boundary ((scalar *){a});
  }
}

Stability condition

The surface tension scheme is time-explicit so the maximum timestep is the oscillation period of the smallest capillary wave. \displaystyle T = \sqrt{\frac{\rho_{m}\Delta_{min}^3}{\pi\sigma}} with \rho_m=(\rho_1+\rho_2)/2. and \rho_1, \rho_2 the densities on either side of the interface.

event stability (i++) {

We first compute the minimum and maximum values of \alpha/f_m = 1/\rho, as well as \Delta_{min}.

  double amin = HUGE, amax = -HUGE, dmin = HUGE;
  foreach_face (reduction(min:amin) reduction(max:amax) reduction(min:dmin)) {
    if (alpha.x[]/fm.x[] > amax) amax = alpha.x[]/fm.x[];
    if (alpha.x[]/fm.x[] < amin) amin = alpha.x[]/fm.x[];
    if (Delta < dmin) dmin = Delta;
  }
  double rhom = (1./amin + 1./amax)/2.;

We then consider each VOF interface with an associated value of \sigma different from zero and set the maximum timestep.

  for (scalar c in tracers)
    if (c.sigma) {
      double dt = sqrt (rhom*cube(dmin)/(pi*c.sigma));
      if (dt < dtmax)
	dtmax = dt;
    }
}

Curvature

This function computes the curvature from the levelset function d using: \displaystyle \kappa = \frac{d^2_xd_{yy} - 2d_xd_yd_{xy} + d^2_yd_{xx}}{|\nabla d|^3}

static inline double curvature (Point point, scalar d) {
  double dx = (d[1] - d[-1])/2.;
  double dy = (d[0,1] - d[0,-1])/2.;
  double dxx = d[1] - 2.*d[] + d[-1];
  double dyy = d[0,1] - 2.*d[] + d[0,-1];
  double dxy = (d[1,1] - d[-1,1] - d[1,-1] + d[-1,-1])/4.;
  double dn = sqrt(sq(dx) + sq(dy)) + 1e-30;
  return (sq(dx)*dyy - 2.*dx*dy*dxy + sq(dy)*dxx)/cube(dn)/Delta;
}

#define LINEAR_CURVATURE 0 // set to 1 to use linear interpolation of curvature

Surface tension term

The calculation of the acceleration is done by this event, overloaded from its definition in the centered Navier–Stokes solver.

event acceleration (i++)
{

We check whether surface tension is associated with any levelset function d.

  for (scalar d in tracers)
    if (d.sigma) {

#if LINEAR_CURVATURE

We first compute the curvature.

      scalar kappa[];
      foreach()
	kappa[] = curvature (point, d);
      boundary ({kappa});
#endif

We allocate the surface tension stress tensor.

      tensor S[];

We compute the diagonal components of the tensor.

      foreach()
	foreach_dimension() {
	  S.y.y[] = 0.;
	  for (int i = -1; i <= 1; i += 2)
	    if (d[]*(d[] + d[i]) < 0.) {
	      double xi = d[]/(d[] - d[i]);
	      double nx = ((d[1] - d[-1])/2. +
			   xi*i*(d[-1] - 2.*d[] + d[1]))/Delta;
#if LINEAR_CURVATURE // does not make much difference
              double ki = kappa[] + xi*(kappa[i] - kappa[]);
#else
	      double ki = curvature (point, d);
#endif
	      S.y.y[] += d.sigma*(fabs(nx)/Delta - sign(d[])*ki*(0.5 - xi));
	    }
        }
      boundary ({S.x.x, S.y.y});

We compute the off-diagonal components of the tensor.

      foreach_vertex()
	foreach_dimension() {
	  if ((d[] + d[0,-1])*(d[-1] + d[-1,-1]) > 0.)
	    S.x.y[] = 0.;
	  else {
	    double xi = (d[-1] + d[-1,-1])/(d[-1] + d[-1,-1] - d[] - d[0,-1]);
	    double ny = (xi*(d[] - d[-1] + d[-1,-1] - d[0,-1]) +
			 d[-1] - d[-1,-1])/Delta;
	    S.x.y[] = - d.sigma*sign(d[] + d[0,-1])*ny/Delta;
	  }
        }

Finally, we add the divergence of the surface tension tensor to the acceleration.

      face vector av = a;
      foreach_face()
	av.x[] += (S.x.x[] - S.x.x[-1] + S.x.y[0,1] - S.x.y[])/Delta;      
    }
}