A Robust Method for Wetting Phenomena Within Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Abstract

This work is dedicated to improved modelling of wetting phenomena and contact angles by means of meshless Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. For this purpose we modify the surface tension model in the neighbourhood of the triple line. For higher accuracy we also alter the general method of computing the interface normals, by applying a specific smoothing to the field of vectors, and not the phase indicator function. The necessity of proper boundary conditions in SPH is concisely discussed with multiphase systems in mind. The implemented model yields accurate results for a set of static cases, even for very low values of the imposed contact angle, both in the absence and presence of gravity. The results of the calculations of droplets moving along the wall show a great potential of the proposed approach in future applications.