Sp. Song et Bq. Li, A coupled boundary finite element method for the computation of magnetically and electrostatically levitated droplet shapes, INT J NUM M, 44(8), 1999, pp. 1055-1077
Citations number
23
Categorie Soggetti
Engineering Mathematics
Journal title
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING
A coupled finite element and boundary element method is developed to predic
t the magnetic vector and scalar potential distributions in the droplets le
vitated in an alternating magnetic or electrostatic field. The computationa
l algorithm entails the application of boundary elements in the region of f
ree space and finite elements in the droplet region, the two being coupled
along the droplet-air interface. The coupled boundary and finite element sc
heme is further integrated with a WRM-based algorithm to predict the free s
urface deformation of magnetically and electrostatically levitated droplets
. Several corner treatments for the boundary and finite element coupling an
d their implications to free surface calculations are discussed. Detailed f
ormulation and numerical implementation are given. Numerical results are co
mpared with available analytical solutions whenever available; A selection
of computed results is presented for magnetically or electrostatically levi
tated droplets under both terrestrial and microgravity conditions. Copyrigh
t (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.