Energy-stable linear schemes for polymer-solvent phase field models

We present new linear energy-stable numerical schemes for numerical simulation of complex polymer-solvent mixtures. The mathematical model proposed by Zhou et al. (2006) consists of the Cahn-Hilliard equation which describes dynamics of the interface that separates polymer and solvent and the Oldroyd-B equations for the hydrodynamics of polymeric mixtures. The model is thermodynamically consistent and dissipates free energy. Our main goal in this paper is to derive numerical schemes for the polymer-solvent mixture model that are energy dissipative and efficient in time. To this end we will propose several problem-suited time discretizations yielding linear schemes and discuss their properties. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.