Ocellaris: a discontinuous Galerkin finite element solver for two-phase flows with high density differences

Abstract

In free-surface flows, such as breaking ocean waves, the momentum field will have a discontinuity at the interface between the two immiscible fluids, air and water, but still be smooth in most of the domain. Using a higher-order numerical method is more efficient than increasing the number of low-order computational cells in areas where the solution is smooth, but higher-order approximations cause convective instabilities at discontinuities. In Ocellaris we use slope limiting of discontinuous Galerkin solutions to stabilise finite element simulations of flows with large density jumps, which would otherwise blow up due to Gibbs oscillations resulting from approximating a factor 1000 sharp jump (air to water) by higher-order shape functions. We have previously shown a slope-limiting procedure for velocity fields that is able to stabilise 2D free-surface simulations running on a single CPU. In this paper our solver is extended to 3D and coupled to an algebraic pressure-correction scheme that retains the exact incompressibility of the direct solution used in the 2D simulations. We have tested the method on a common 3D dam-breaking test case and compared the free-surface evolution and impact pressures to experimental results. We also show how a forcing-zone approach can be used to simulate a surface-piercing vertical cylinder in an infinite wave field. In both cases the free-surface elevation and the forces and pressures compare well with published experiments. The Ocellaris solver is available as an open-source and well-documented program along with the input files needed to replicate the included results (www.ocellaris.org).