A Comparative study on the interfacial tension models of the particle method for the liquid-liquid-gas three-phase flow

Fukuda, Takanari 

Deepening the understanding of the molten core-concrete interaction (MCCI) is of the great importance for the sake of the severe accident managements as well as the fuel debris retrieval. Due to the difficulty to perform the experimental study with the extremely hot corium, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is expected to provide physical insights on the thermal-hydraulics taken place in the corium. The particle method are one of the CFDs that have advantages on seamless tracking of the multi-phase multi-component flow, typically involved in the MCCI. However, the adequacy of the modelling methods for the interfacial tension has not yet well investigated, especially for the general multi-phase flow with more than three phases. Hence, in this study, a simple liquid-liquid-gas three phase flow is analyzed with the existing two types of the interfacial tension models: the continuum surface force (CSF) model and the potential model. Through the comparison, it has been implied that the CSF model gives more accurate result with the satisfactory resolution, whereas the stability is strongly dependent on the resolution of the bulk fluid. On the other hand, the potential model outperforms in terms of the stability, presumably because it does not require the numerical estimation of the geometrical information. However the inter-particle potential force seems to induces locally unphysical pressure distribution, which can be especially detrimental on the multiple interface junctions.