Direct numerical simulations of incompressible multiphase electrohydrodynamic flow with single-phase transportation schemes

Abstract

In the present study, two schemes named face discernment and flux correction are proposed to achieve single-phase transportation of free charge in multiphase electrohydrodynamic(EHD) problems. Many EHD phenomena occur between air and another liquid while the free charge can only be transported in the liquid phase through ohmic conduction and convection due to the poor conductivity of air. However, the charge may be leaked into the dielectric air during the simulation due to the asynchronous transportation between interface and free charge. To avoid this unphysical error, a face discernment method is designed to produce an accurate ohmic conduction of free charge by providing a superior physical properties distribution at the interface. Subsequently the flux correction method is developed to correct the advection flux of charge density to prevent ions crossing the interface. These two schemes are based on the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model and independent with the specific interface updating method. The performance of the proposed methods are carefully validated with several test cases. The algorithms are implemented as an OpenFOAM extension and are published as open source.