A Method for Capturing Sharp Fluid Interfaces on Arbitrary Meshes

The paper describes a high resolution method (CICSAM) for the accurate capturing of fluid interfaces on meshes of arbitrary topology. It is based on the finite-volume technique and is fully conservative. The motion of the interface is tracked by the solution of a scalar transport equation for a phase-indicator field that is discontinuous at the interface and uniform elsewhere; no explicit interface reconstruction, which is perceived to be difficult to implement on unstructured meshes, is needed. The novelty of the method lies in the adaptive combination of high resolution discretisation schemes which ensure the preservation of the sharpness and shape of the interface while retaining boundedness of the field. The special implicit implementation presented herein makes it applicable to unstructured meshes and an extension to such grids is presented. The method is capable of handling interface rupture and coalescence. The paper outlines the methodology of CICSAM and its validation against academic test cases used to verify its accuracy.