[JD_PM]

I am studying the differences between CavitatingFoaM​ and InterPhaseChangeFoaM.

The basics are clear: the former assumes compressible, isothermal flow and deals with a two phase, homogeneous mixture while the latter models incompressible, isothermal flow and deals with a two phase, immiscible flow.

I checked the code (for CavitatingFoaM​: https://www.openfoam.com/documentati...8C_source.html, for InterPhaseChangeFoaM: https://www.openfoam.com/documentati...8C_source.html) and only found the following remarkable difference:

In the Pressure-velocity PIMPLE corrector loop of InterPhaseChangeFoaM.C one finds

surfaceScalarField rhoPhi
(
IOobject
(
"rhoPhi",
runTime.timeName(),
mesh
),
mesh,
dimensionedScalar(dimMass/dimTime, Zero)
);

What does this piece of code really do? I found an old post (SurfaceScalarFields) regarding surfaceScalarField but did not really help me understand such piece.

Your replies will be highly appreciated

[JulioPieri]

I'm not familiar with those solvers, but this particular piece of code is just initializing a surfaceScalarField called rhoPhi as zero and with units of [kg/s].

surfaceScalarFields are fields of scalar (rather than vectors) valid at the surfaces of cells, such as fluxes. rhoPhi could be rho*phi, i.e, mass flux on faces.