We developed a sharp interface level-set approach for two-phase immiscible flow with moving contact lines. The Cox-Voinov model is used to describe the moving contact line. A piecewise linear interface method is used to construct the signed distance function and to implement the contact angle boundary condition. Spurious currents are studied in the case of static and moving fluid interfaces, which show convergence behavior. Pressure and the surface tension force are balanced up to machine precision for static parabolic interfaces, while the velocity error decreases steadily with grid refinement when the interface is advected in a uniform flow field. The moving contact line problem is studied and validated through comparison with theory and experiments for an advancing interface and capillary rise in a tube.
We present a continuum (i.e., an effective) description of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media characterized by two fields, the pressure and the saturation. Gradients in these two fields are the driving forces that move the immiscible fluids around. The fluids are characterized by two seepage velocity fields, one for each fluid. Following Hansen et al.\ (Transport in Porous Media, 125, 565 (2018)), we construct a two-way transformation between the velocity couple consisting of the seepage velocity of each fluid, to a velocity couple consisting of the average seepage velocity of both flui…
For well-stirred multiphase fluid systems the mean interface area per unit volume, or "specific interface area" $S_V$, is a significant characteristic of the system state. In particular, it is important for the dynamics of systems of immiscible liquids experiencing interfacial boiling. We estimate the value of parameter $S_V$ as a function of the heat influx $\dot{Q}_V$ to the system or the average system overheat $\langleΘ\rangle$ above the interfacial boiling point. The derived results can be reformulated for the case of an endothermic chemical reaction between two liquid reagents with the g…
An improved wetting boundary implementation strategy is proposed based on lattice Boltzmann color-gradient model in this paper. In this strategy, an extra interface force condition is demonstrated based on the diffuse interface assumption and is employed in contact line region. It has been validated by three benchmark problems: static droplet wetting on a flat surface and a curved surface, and dynamic capillary filling. Good performances are shown in all three cases. Relied on the strict validation to our scheme, the viscous fingering phenomenon of immiscible fluids displacement in a two-dimen…
Electrowetting (EW) of water drops in ambient oil has found a wide range of applications including lab-on-a-chip devices, display screens, and variable focus lenses. The efficacy of all these applications is dependent on the contact angle hysteresis (CAH), which is generally reduced in the presence of ambient oil due to thin lubrication layers. While it is well-known that AC voltage reduces the effective contact angle hysteresis (CAH) for EW in ambient air, we demonstrate here that CAH for EW in ambient oil increases with increasing AC and DC voltage. Taking into account the disjoining pressur…
Based on thermodynamic considerations we derive a set of equations relating the seepage velocities of the fluid components in immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media. They necessitate the introduction of a new velocity function, the co-moving velocity. This velocity function is a characteristic of the porous medium. Together with a constitutive relation between the velocities and the driving forces, such as the pressure gradient, these equations form a closed set. We solve four versions of the capillary tube model analytically using this theory. We test the theory numerica…
A fundamental variable characterizing immiscible two-phase flow in porous media is the wetting saturation, which is the ratio between the pore volume filled with wetting fluid and the total pore volume. More generally, this variable comes from a specific choice of coordinates on some underlying space, the domain of variables that can be used to express the volumetric flow rate. The underlying mathematical structure allows for the introduction of other variables containing the same information, but which are more convenient from a theoretical point of view. We introduce along these lines polar …
We present a multiparticle collision dynamics (MPC) implementation of layered immiscible fluids $A$ and $B$ of different shear viscosities separated by planar interfaces. The simulated flow profile for imposed steady shear motion and the time-dependent shear stress functions are in excellent agreement with our continuum hydrodynamics results for the composite fluid. The wave-vector dependent transverse velocity auto-correlation functions (TVAF) in the bulk-fluid regions of the layers decay exponentially, and agree with those of single-phase isotropic MPC fluids. In addition, we determine the h…
In theoretical analyses of the moving contact line, an infinite force along the solid wall has been reported based off the non-integrable stress along a single interface. In this investigation we demonstrate that the stress singularity is integrable and results in a finite force at the moving contact line if the contact line is treated as a one-dimensional manifold and all three interfaces that make up the moving contact line are taken into consideration. This is due to the dipole nature of the vorticity and pressure distribution around the moving contact line. Mathematically, this finite forc…
The conventional no-slip boundary condition leads to a non-integrable stress singularity at a moving contact line. This makes numerical simulations challenging, especially when capillary effects are essential for the dynamics of the flow. This paper presents a new boundary methodology, suitable for numerical simulation of flow of two immiscible and incompressible fluids in the presence of moving contact points. The methodology is based on combining a relation between the apparent contact angle and the contact point velocity with the similarity solution for Stokes flow at a planar interface. Th…
Given that contact line between liquid and solid phases can move regardless how negligibly small are the surface roughness, Navier slip, liquid volatility, impurities, deviations from the Newtonian behavior, and other system-dependent parameters, the problem is treated here from the pure hydrodynamical point of view only. In this note, based on straightforward logical considerations, we would like to offer a new idea of how the moving contact line singularity can be resolved and provide support with estimates of the involved physical parameters as well as with an analytical local solution.
We consider a liquid drop placed on a smooth homogeneous solid substrate as it spreads from rest to its eventual equilibrium state. The problem is studied numerically in the framework of a model where the contact angle formed by the drop's free surface with the substrate is not prescribed as a function of the contact-line speed and has to be found as part of the solution. It is shown that in this spontaneous spreading, as the drop starts moving and the contact line accelerates, the dynamic contact angle decreases with the contact-line speed, which is in line with what experimental observations…
When an aqueous drop contacts an immiscible oil film, it displays complex interfacial dynamics. Upon contact the oil spreads onto the drop's liquid-air interface, first forming a curvature that drives an apparent drop spreading motion and later fully engulfing the drop. We study this flow using both 3-phase Lattice-Boltzmann simulations based on the conservative phase field model and experiments. Inertially and viscously limited dynamics are explored using the Ohnesorge number $Oh$ as a function of $R/H$, the ratio between the initial drop radius $R$ and the film height $H$. Both regimes show …
The merging of immiscible drops differs significantly from the merging of miscible drops due to the formation of a liquid-liquid interface between drops. The immiscibility requires the formation of a four-phase contact point, where the drops, the gas and the substrate meet. We show that this point has its own unique dynamics, never studied beforehand. For very different scenarios, the propagation distance of this point follows scales with time like t^{0.5}. A model balancing the driving and dissipative forces agrees with our experiments.
Applying contact angles based on a continuously moving contact line in 2D VOF simulations
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Sorbonne Université（索邦大学）；Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学）；Institut Universitaire de France（法国高等学术研究院）
The fluid-mechanics community is currently divided in assessing the boundaries of applicability of the macroscopic approach to fluid mechanical problems. Can the dynamics of nano-droplets be described by the same macroscopic equations as the ones used for macro-droplets? To the greatest degree, this question should be addressed to the moving contact-line problem. The problem is naturally multiscale, where even using a slip boundary condition results in spurious numerical solutions and transcendental stagnation regions in modelling in the vicinity of the contact line. In this publication, it ha…
The movement of the triple contact line plays a crucial role in many applications such as ink-jet printing, liquid coating and drainage (imbibition) in porous media. To design accurate computational tools for these applications, predictive models of the moving contact line are needed. However, the basic mechanisms responsible for movement of the triple contact line are not well understood but still debated. We investigate the movement of the contact line between water, vapour and a silica-like solid surface under steady conditions in low capillary number regime. We use molecular dynamics (MD) …
The contact line dynamics of a thermal field assisted flow configuration of two immiscible fluids is considered in a narrow thermofluidic pathway. The surfaces of the channel are wetted with predesigned wettabilities and interdigitated electrodes are mounted on the substrates to generate non-uniform electric field. In this study, the interplay of thermocapillary and electrothermal forces on interfacial dynamics are studied in detail. The former is caused by surface tension gradients while the latter results from gradients in permittivity and electrical conductivity. Our investigations reveal t…
The conventional no-slip boundary condition leads to a non-integrable stress singularity at a contact line. This is a main challenge in numerical simulations of two-phase flows with moving contact lines. We derive a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model for the velocity field at a contact point moving with constant velocity over a curved wall. The model is a perturbation of the classical Huh and Scriven hydrodynamic solution [11], which is only valid for flow over a flat wall. The purpose of the hydrodynamic model is to investigate the macroscopic behavior of the fluids close to a contact point. …
A numerical method for simulating three-phase flows with moving contact lines on arbitrarily complex surfaces is developed in the framework of lattice Boltzmann method. In this method, the immiscible three-phase flow is modeled through a multiple-relaxation-time color-gradient model, which not only allows for a full range of interfacial tensions but also produces stable outcomes for a wide range of viscosity ratios. A characteristic line model is introduced to implement the wetting boundary condition, which is not only easy to implement but also able to handle arbitrarily complex boundaries wi…
Equilibrium contact angle of liquid drops over horizontal surfaces has been modeled using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The model is capable of accurate implementation of contact angles to stationary and moving contact lines. In this scheme, the desired value for stationary or dynamic contact angle is used to correct the profile near the triple point. This is achieved by correcting the surface normals near the contact line and also interpolating the drop profile into the boundaries. Simulations show that a close match to the chosen contact angle values can be achieved for both station…
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 …
The molecular structure of moving contact lines (MCLs) and the emergence of a corresponding macroscopic dissipation have made the MCL a paradigm of fluid dynamics. Through novel averaging techniques that remove capillary waves smearing we achieve an unprecedented resolution in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and find that they match with the continuum description obtained by finite element method (FEM) down to molecular scales. This allows us to distinguish dissipation at the liquid-solid interface (Navier-slip) and at the contact line, the latter being negligible for the rather smooth sub…
The dynamics of particles attached to an interface separating two immiscible fluids are encountered in a wide variety of applications. Here we present a combined asymptotic and numerical investigation of the fluid motion past spherical particles attached to a deformable interface undergoing uniform creeping flows in the limit of small Capillary number and small deviation of the contact angle from 90 degrees. Under the assumption of a constant three-phase contact angle, we calculate the interfacial deformation around an isolated particle and a particle pair. Applying the Lorentz reciprocal theo…
A hydrophilic liquid, such as water, forms hydrogen bonds with a hydrophilic substrate. The strength and locality of the hydrogen bonding interactions prohibit slip of the liquid over the substrate. The question then arises how the contact line can advance during wetting. Using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations we show that the contact line advances by single molecules moving ahead of the contact line through two distinct processes: either moving over or displacing other liquid molecules. In both processes friction occurs at the molecular scale. We measure the energy dissipation at th…
We investigate velocity variations inside of and surrounding a gravity driven drop impacting on and moving through a confining orifice, wherein the effects of edge geometry (round- vs. sharp-edged) and surface wettability (hydrophobic vs. hydrophilic) of the orifice are considered. Using refractive index matching and time-resolved PIV, we quantify the redistribution of energy in the drop and the surrounding fluid during the drop's impact and motion through a round-edged orifice. The measurements show the importance of a) drop kinetic energy transferred to and dissipated within the surrounding …
In this paper, we depict interfacial electro-thermo-chemical-hydrodynamics of two immiscible fluids in a microchannel with substrates patterned by ribs. The motion of the binary fluids is set by an alternating current electrothermal (ACET) mechanism. Our investigations, based on free-energy-based phase field formalism, reveal that the capillary filling dynamics and the contact line motion are strong functions of the wetting characteristics and geometric parameters of the patterned ribs. Modulation of these parameters alters the surface energy over the rib surface, which, in turn, facilitates t…
Despite decades of research, the modeling of moving contact lines has remained a formidable challenge in fluid dynamics whose resolution will impact numerous industrial, biological, and daily life applications. On the one hand, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has the ability to provide unique insight into the microscopic details that determine the dynamic behavior of the contact line, which is not possible with either continuum-scale simulations or experiments. On the other hand, continuum-based models provide a link to the macroscopic description of the system. In this Feature Article, we …
