Treatment for the Singularity Problem in the Phase Segregation

Abstract

In the Eulerian–Eulerian two-fluid model, comprising air and droplets, singularities often arise as the phase fraction of dispersed droplets approaches zero. The nonconservative momentum equations can address this issue, but it will lead to inaccurate solutions when encountering discontinuities. To tackle the singularity problem and ensure accurate solutions for the droplet field, a novel adaptive form of momentum equations is proposed. The adaptive form defaults to the conservative form and smoothly transitions to the phase-intensive form when the phase fraction falls below a critical value, specifically 1/1000 of the inlet. The LU-SGS algorithm, enhanced with the inner iteration step method, is employed for numerical solutions of the droplet field. Comparative analysis reveals that the discrepancy between the results obtained from the adaptive form and the conservative form is negligible, under 0.5‰. Notably, with larger Courant numbers, the conservative form diverges from waterless regions despite imposing the minimum phase fraction constraint. Conversely, the adaptive form consistently maintains a Courant number of five times or more, potentially exceeding a hundredfold in complex flows. Although the adaptive form moderately increases complexity and computational time for a single time step, the improvement of the maximum Courant number will bring significant computational efficiency advantages. Moreover, the adaptive form holds promise for application in various other multiphase flow scenarios.