[flo(w)]

Dear all, I'm using the icoReactingMultiphaseInterFoam solver to simulate the laser melting process. I have 3 components: Solid, liquid and gas. Everything works well as long as the surface tension is as low as 0.07 N/m. But spurious velocities occur and the simulation blows up, when I increase the surface tension to the physically correct value of 1.7 N/m, which is a typical value for liquid metals. It seems as if the spurious velocities occur in the area of the interface between gas and liquid/solid where melting or solidification takes place.
Can anyone give me a hint how to solve the problem? Many thanks!

[navidamin]

Originally Posted by flo(w)

Dear all, I'm using the icoReactingMultiphaseInterFoam solver to simulate the laser melting process. I have 3 components: Solid, liquid and gas. Everything works well as long as the surface tension is as low as 0.07 N/m. But spurious velocities occur and the simulation blows up, when I increase the surface tension to the physically correct value of 1.7 N/m, which is a typical value for liquid metals. It seems as if the spurious velocities occur in the area of the interface between gas and liquid/solid where melting or solidification takes place.
Can anyone give me a hint how to solve the problem? Many thanks!

Well, it depends on your case characteristics. If you have a melt and solid, it means you have temperature gradient in your melt flow and thus you need to take care of marangoni force. in most cases , Maranogni compensates for the effects of surface tension force to some extent and thus alleviates the unwanted spurious currents at the surface, to a good degree.