arXiv · 2606.24295
Suppressing Spontaneous Droplet Shrinkage in Cahn-Hilliard-Stokes Microflows
Abstract
This paper addresses non-physical artifact, specifically spontaneous droplet shrinkage, in Cahn-Hilliard-based simulations of immiscible two-phase microflows. That artifact arise from the energy functional's preference for reduced interfacial area, leading to shifts in equilibrium phase fractions away from the physical bounds of 0 and 1. A curvature-dependent correction is proposed that shifts the double-well potential to counteract this drift. This method is validated on the following test cases: an isolated droplet in a cubic cavity, drainage in a synthetic porous medium, and flow through a T-shaped junction. Results demonstrate significant suppression of phase fraction overshoot/undershoot and improved droplet volume conservation.
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A. M. Gurin. 2026-06-23. Suppressing Spontaneous Droplet Shrinkage in Cahn-Hilliard-Stokes Microflows. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.24295
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