Wellposedness of the discontinuous ODE associated with two-phase flows

We consider the initial value problem \dot x (t) = v(t,x(t)) \;\mbox{ for } t\in (a,b), \;\; x(t_0)=x_0 which determines the pathlines of a two-phase flow, i.e.\ $v=v(t,x)$ is a given velocity field of the type $$v(t,x)= \begin{cases} v^+(t,x) &\text{ if } x \in \Omega^+(t)\\ v^-(t,x) &\text{ if } x \in \Omega^-(t) \end{cases}$$ with $\Omega^\pm (t)$ denoting the bulk phases of the two-phase fluid system under consideration. The bulk phases are separated by a moving and deforming interface $\Sigma (t)$. Since we allow for flows with phase change, these pathlines are allowed to cross or touch the interface. Imposing a kind of transversality condition at $\Sigma (t)$, which is intimately related to the mass balance in such systems, we show existence and uniqueness of absolutely continuous solutions of the above ODE in case the one-sided velocity fields $v^\pm:\overline{{\rm gr}(\Omega^\pm)}\to \mathbb{R}^n$ are continuous in $(t,x)$ and locally Lipschitz continuous in $x$. Note that this is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of well-defined co-moving control volumes for two-phase flows, a basic concept for mathematical modeling of two-phase continua

Thermodynamically consistent modeling for dissolution/growth of bubbles in an incompressible solvent

We derive mathematical models of the elementary process of dissolution/growth of bubbles in a liquid under pressure control. The modeling starts with a fully compressible version, both for the liquid and the gas phase so that the entropy principle can be easily evaluated. This yields a full PDE system for a compressible two-phase fluid with mass transfer of the gaseous species. Then the passage to an incompressible solvent in the liquid phase is discussed, where a carefully chosen equation of state for the liquid mixture pressure allows for a limit in which the solvent density is constant. We finally provide a simplification of the PDE system in case of a dilute solution

Continuum thermodynamics of chemically reacting fluid mixtures

We consider viscous, heat conducting mixtures of molecularly miscible chemical species forming a fluid in which the constituents can undergo chemical reactions. Assuming a common temperature for all components, we derive a closed system of partial mass and partial momentum balances plus a mixture balance of internal energy. This is achieved by careful exploitation of the entropy principle and requires appropriate definitions of absolute temperature and chemical potentials, based on an adequate definition of thermal energy excluding diffusive contributions. The resulting interaction forces split into a thermo-mechanical and a chemical part, where the former turns out to be symmetric in case of binary interactions. For chemically reacting systems and as a new result, the chemical interaction force is a contribution being non-symmetric outside of chemical equilibrium. The theory also provides a rigorous derivation of the so-called generalized thermodynamic driving forces, avoiding the use of approximate solutions to the Boltzmann equations. Moreover, using an appropriately extended version of the entropy principle and introducing cross-effects already before closure as entropy invariant couplings between principal dissipative mechanisms, the Onsager symmetry relations become a strict consequence. With a classification of the factors in the binary products of the entropy production according to their parity--instead of the classical partition into so-called fluxes and driving forces--the apparent anti-symmetry of certain couplings is thereby also revealed. If the diffusion velocities are small compared to the speed of sound, the Maxwell-Stefan equations follow in the case without chemistry, thereby neglecting wave phenomena in the diffusive motion. This results in a reduced model with only mass being balanced individually. In the reactive case ..

Global existence for a class of reaction-diffusion systems with mass action kinetics and concentration-dependent diffusivities

In this work we study the existence of classical solutions for a class of reaction-diffusion systems with quadratic growth naturally arising in mass action chemistry when studying networks of reactions of the type $A_i+A_j \rightleftharpoons A_k$ with Fickian diffusion, where the diffusion coefficients might depend on time, space and on all the concentrations $c_i$ of the chemical species. In the case of one single reaction, we prove global existence for space dimensions $N\leq 5$. In the more restrictive case of diffusion coefficients of the type $d_i(c_i)$, we use an $L^2$-approach to prove global existence for $N\leq 9$. In the general case of networks of such reactions we extend the previous method to get global solutions for general diffusivities if $N\leq 3$ and for diffusion of type $d_i(c_i)$ if $N\leq 5$. In the latter quasi-linear case of $d_i(c_i)$ and for space dimensions $N=2$ and $N=3$, global existence holds for more than quadratic reactions. We can actually allow for more general rate functions including fractional power terms, important in applications. We obtain global existence under appropriate growth restrictions with an explicit dependence on the space dimension $N$

Highly accurate numerical computation of implicitly defined volumes using the Laplace-Beltrami operator

This paper introduces a novel method for the efficient and accurate computation of the volume of a domain whose boundary is given by an orientable hypersurface which is implicitly given as the iso-contour of a sufficiently smooth level-set function. After spatial discretization, local approximation of the hypersurface and application of the Gaussian divergence theorem, the volume integrals are transformed to surface integrals. Application of the surface divergence theorem allows for a further reduction to line integrals which are advantageous for numerical quadrature. We discuss the theoretical foundations and provide details of the numerical algorithm. Finally, we present numerical results for convex and non-convex hypersurfaces embedded in cuboidal domains, showing both high accuracy and thrid- to fourth-order convergence in space.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, 3 table

Well-posedness analysis of multicomponent incompressible flow models

In this paper, we extend our study of mass transport in multicomponent isothermal fluids to the incompressible case. For a mixture, incompressibility is defined as the independence of average volume on pressure, and a weighted sum of the partial mass densities stays constant. In this type of models, the velocity field in the Navier-Stokes equations is not solenoidal and, due to different specific volumes of the species, the pressure remains connected to the densities by algebraic formula. By means of a change of variables in the transport problem, we equivalently reformulate the PDE system as to eliminate positivity and incompressibility constraints affecting the density, and prove two type of results: the local-in-time well-posedness in classes of strong solutions, and the global-in-time existence of solutions for initial data sufficiently close to a smooth equilibrium solution

A Kinematic Evolution Equation for the Dynamic Contact Angle and some Consequences

We investigate the moving contact line problem for two-phase incompressible flows with a kinematic approach. The key idea is to derive an evolution equation for the contact angle in terms of the transporting velocity field. It turns out that the resulting equation has a simple structure and expresses the time derivative of the contact angle in terms of the velocity gradient at the solid wall. Together with the additionally imposed boundary conditions for the velocity, it yields a more specific form of the contact angle evolution. Thus, the kinematic evolution equation is a tool to analyze the evolution of the contact angle. Since the transporting velocity field is required only on the moving interface, the kinematic evolution equation also applies when the interface moves with its own velocity independent of the fluid velocity. We apply the developed tool to a class of moving contact line models which employ the Navier slip boundary condition. We derive an explicit form of the contact angle evolution for sufficiently regular solutions, showing that such solutions are unphysical. Within the simplest model, this rigorously shows that the contact angle can only relax to equilibrium if some kind of singularity is present at the contact line. Moreover, we analyze more general models including surface tension gradients at the contact line, slip at the fluid-fluid interface and mass transfer across the fluid-fluid interface.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures; accepted manuscript