Volume of Fluid Method: A Brief Review

Abstract

Understanding and predicting multiphase flows is of great relevance due to the ubiquitous nature of such flows in both nature and in many industrial applications. Rapid development of high speed computers and problem-specific algorithms in the last 2 decades has enabled the study of multiphase flows through numerical simulations. In this paper, we give a brief overview of different methods used in direct numerical simulations of two-phase flows. In particular, we focus on the volume of fluid (VOF) method used for locating and advecting the interface. VOF method is a mesh based interface capturing method in which a scalar function called void fraction field (which is the ratio of tracked fluid to the cell volume) is advected in order to track the interface position. A geometric VOF algorithm is detailed in this work. which strikes a balance between accuracy, ease of implementation and volume conservation on a structured grid. Another challenge in two-phase flow simulations is the inclusion of surface tension forces accurately. Here, we give a brief overview of Eulerian surface tension models and detail an approach balancing computational cost, curvature estimation and imposed timestep restriction. Finally, we discuss the most recent advances in VOF methods and outline the various numerical challenges we expect to encounter.