Sharp interface Cartesian grid method II: A technique for simulating droplet interactions with surfaces of arbitrary shape

A fixed-grid, sharp interface method is developed to simulate droplet impact and spreading on surfaces of arbitrary shape. A finite-difference technique is used to discretize the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on a Cartesian grid. To compute flow around embedded solid boundaries, a previously developed sharp interface method for solid immersed boundaries is used. The ghost fluid method (GFM) is used for fluid-fluid interfaces. The model accounts for the effects of discontinuities such as density and viscosity jumps and singular sources such as surface tension in both bubble and droplet simulations. With a level-set representation of the propagating interface, large deformations of the boundary can be handled easily. The model successfully captures the essential features of interactions between fluid-fluid and solid-fluid phases during impact and spreading. Moving contact lines are modeled with contact angle hysteresis and contact line motion on non-planar surfaces is computed. Experimental observations and other simulation results are used to validate the calculations. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.