The Depth Averaged Numerical Simulation of Laminar Thin Film Flows With Capillary Waves

Abstract

Thinfilm flows encountered in engineering systems such as aeroengine bearing chambers often exhibit capillary waves and occur within a moderate to high Weber number range. Although the depthaveraged simulation of these thinfilm flows is computationally efficient relative to traditional volumeoffluid (VOF) methods, numerical challenges remain particularly for solutions involving capillary waves and in the higher Weber number, low surface tension range. A depthaveraged approximation of the Navier–Stokes equations has been used to explore the effect of surface tension, grid resolution, and inertia on thinfilm rimming solution accuracy and numerical stability. In shock and pooling solutions where capillary ripples are present, solution stability, and accuracy are shown to be highly sensitive to surface tension. The common practice in analytical studies of enforcing unphysical low Weber number stability constraints is shown to stabilize the solution by artificially damping capillary oscillations. This approach, however, although providing stable solutions is shown to adversely affect solution accuracy. An alternative grid resolutionbased stability criterion is demonstrated and used to obtain numerically stable shock and pooling solutions without recourse to unphysical surface tension values. This allows for the accurate simulation of thinfilm flows with capillary waves within the constrained parameter space corresponding to physical material and flow properties. Results obtained using the proposed formulation and solution strategy show good agreement with available experimental data from literature for low Re coating flows and moderate to high Re falling wavy film flows.