N. Lock et al., LOCAL MESH ADAPTATION TECHNIQUE FOR FRONT TRACKING PROBLEMS, International journal for numerical methods in fluids, 28(4), 1998, pp. 719-736
A numerical model is developed for the simulation of moving interfaces
in viscous incompressible flows. The model is based on the finite ele
ment method with a pseudo-concentration technique to track the front.
Since a Eulerian approach is chosen, the interface is advected by the
flow through a fixed mesh. Therefore, material discontinuity across th
e interface cannot be described accurately. To remedy this problem, th
e model has been supplemented with a local mesh adaptation technique.
This latter consists in updating the mesh at each time step to the int
erface position, such that element boundaries lie along the front. It
has been implemented for unstructured triangular finite element meshes
. The outcome of this technique is that it allows an accurate treatmen
t of material discontinuity across the interface and, if necessary, a
modelling of interface phenomena such as surface tension by using spec
ific boundary elements. For illustration, two examples are computed an
d presented in this paper: the broken dam problem and the Rayleigh-Tay
lor instability. Good agreement has been obtained in the comparison of
the numerical results with theory or available experimental data. (C)
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.