An adaptive level-set method with enhanced volume conservation for simulations in multiphase domains

Mechanical computations in multiphase domains raise numerous difficulties from the generation of the initial mesh to its adaptation throughout the simulation. All alternatives to mesh adaptation, such as level-set methods, have the well-known drawback of inducing volume conservation issues. In this paper, a moving mesh method is coupled to a topological mesh adaptation technique in order to track moving and deforming interfaces in multiphase simulations, with a robust control of mesh quality. Level-set functions are used as intermediaries to enhance the mesh adaptation technique with a volume conservation constraint, which is compatible both with implicit and with body-fitted interfaces. Results show that this method has the same advantage of permitting important displacements, deformations, and topological changes (coalescence of interfaces, for example) as a standard level-set method, while volume diffusion is drastically reduced. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.