Free Surface Modeling

Outline

 Engineering Applications
 Moving Boundary Methods
– Lagrangian
– Eulerian
 Flux Line-Segment Model for Advection and Interface
Reconstruction (FLAIR)
 Hybrid Finite Element-Volume of Fluid
 Simulations
 Sample Applications

 Crystal Growth

 Molding/Casting

 Liquid Free Surfaces

 Flame Propagation
 Moving Boundary Methods

 Lagrangian Methods  EulerianMethods

– Grid is Adaptive
– Points on interface are
advected
– New interface is found by
fitting curve through
advected points
– Grid is fixed
– Fluid under interface is
advected
– New interface is
approximated by using
volume fraction variable
 Some Specific Methods

 Lagrangian Type
– Moving Grid
– Front Tracking
 Eulerian Type
– Marker and Cell (MAC)
– Volume-of-Fluid (VOF)
» Surface Line Interface Calculation (SLIC)
» Hirt & Nichols VOF
» Young’s VOF
» FLAIR
» Many other versions exist
 Moving Grid Methods

 Rayleigh-Taylor
Instability

 Interface coincides
with cell boundaries

 Distorted Grid over

time

Example from Approaches to Resolving and Tracking Interfaces and Discontinuities, Laskey et. al, NRL Report 5999, 7/28/97
 Front Tracking Methods

 Points defined on Interface

and are moved in time

 Interface location and

orientation is known at each
time step

 Method fails when interface Sample Configuration

geometry becomes
complicated
 MAC (Marker and Cell)

 Massless Particles are

injected
 Particle Trajectories are
tracked
 Cannot resolve details of
the inteface smaller than
the mesh size
 Expensive in Computer
time and memory
 Volume Tracking: General Idea

 Define “fluid volume fraction” : f-field

– f=0: No fluid in cell
– f=1: Cell filled with fluid
– 0<f<1: Cell partially filled with fluid (i.e. Interface cell)
 Initial interface geometry is used to compute
fractions 1 1 1 .68 0

1 1 1 .42 0

1 1 .92 .09 0

1 .85 .35 0 0

.31 .09 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0
 Volume Tracking: General Idea

 Interface is reconstructed using the “f-field”

– f-field does NOT imply a unique interface geometry
– interface is constructed based on some algorithm

 Volume fractions (f-field) are some-how advected

 New f-field based on amount of fluid entering,

leaving and reamining in the cell
 Advection of Volume Fraction Field

 Fluid Advection satisfies:

F
  U   F  0
t
 Volume Tracking -
Advantages/Disadvantages

 Advantages
– Interface positions are NOT stored for each time-step
– Large Surface Deformations
– Mergering and Breakup of Interfaces
– Easy implementation

 Disadvantages
– Interfaces are NOT exact
– Reconstruction techniques require many logical operations
– Resolution dependent
SLIC (Simple Line Interface Calculation)

 Interface is Horz. or Vert.

 Assumed:
– fluid resides on heavyside Original Geometry
of interface

 Advection:
– x-pass (horizontal)
– y-pass (vertical)
x-pass y-pass
 Hirt & Nichol’s VOF

 Interface is Horz. or Vert.

(piecewise constant)
(stair stepped)

 Derivatives of the f-field Original Geometry

determine whether the

interface is Horz. or Vert.

 Derivatives calculated using

fractional volumes averaged
Reconstructed
over several cells
 Young’s VOF

 Interfaces - piecewise linear

 Interface has slope and is

fitted within a single cell
Original Geometry

 Interface slope and fluid

position are determined from
inspection of 8 neighboring
cells

Reconstructed