Eulerian-Lagrangian multiscale methods for solving scalar equations - Application to incompressible two-phase flows

The present article proposes a new hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian numerical method, based on a volume particle meshing of the Eulerian grid, for solving transport equations. The approach, called Volume Of Fluid Sub-Mesh method (VOF-SM), has the advantage of being able to deal with interface tracking as well as advection-diffusion transport equations of scalar quantities. The Eulerian evolutions of a scalar field could be obtained on any orthogonal curvilinear grid thanks to the Lagrangian advection and a redistribution of particles on the Eulerian grid. The Eulerian concentrations result from the projection of the volume and scalar informations handled by the particles. The particle velocities are interpolated from the Eulerian velocity field. The VOF-SM method is validated on several scalar interface tracking and transport problems and is compared to existing schemes within the literature. It is finally coupled to a Navier-Stokes solver and applied to the simulation of two free-surface flows, i.e. the two-dimensional buckling of a viscous jet during the filling of a square mold and the three-dimensional dam-break flow in a tank. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.