A Review of Geometrical Interface Properties for 3D Front-Tracking Methods

Modeling and simulating multiphase flows still remain an exciting and stimulating scientific challenge. Many approaches were developed to describe the topological evolution of the interface. This paper remains in the domain of the Front-Tracking method [8, 10], in which, in addition to the use of an Eulerian mesh to solve the Navier-Stokes equations, a Lagrangian interfacial mesh of surface elements (triangles in 3D) explicitly describes the evolution of the interface. Whatever the method used, getting the interfacial capillary, mass or energy transfers is crucial for the study of multiphase flows. A comparison is done between different techniques [7, 10] used to get the geometrical properties of the 3D front-tracking objects, such as the surface tension forces, mean curvatures and normal vectors, which are essential for the modeling and understanding of multiphase flows.