On the conservation of primary and secondary properties in the simulation of multiphase flows

Summary

The formulation of multiphase flows emanates from basic conservation laws: mass, momentum and energy. While these are embedded in the celebrated Navier-Stokes equations, none of these properties do necessarily hold when constructing a computational model, unless special care is taken in discretizing the different terms of the governing equations. The conservation of both primary (mass, momentum) and secondary (energy) quantities is not only relevant to mimic the dynamics of the system, but also computationally beneficial. Conservation of such quantities produce an enhanced physical reliability, removing most of the need for stabilization artifacts. In addition, discrete conservation implies numerical stability as well, producing inherently stable problems. Focusing on the capillary force, which is one of the most distinguishable features of multiphase flows, we present here our most recent developments in the quest for conservation. Departing from an inherently mass conservative method, in this work we sketch our previous developments to obtain an energy conservation and next we present our attempt at momentum. By carefully assessing the continuum formulation, we delve into the mathematical properties responsible for the conservation of linear momentum, which we then mimic in the regularized and discrete formulations.

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