InterTrackFoam
 

We are examining the possibility of using the InterTrackFoam solver developed by Dr. Tukovic for modeling thermocapillary (Marangoni) flows. A large part of this work concerns flows in the space (and hence very low gravity). In tests of the tutorial "hydrofoil" it is found that the solver immediately crashes if the gravity vector is zero. In other tests it seems that is is not possible to obtain solutions if the gravity vector does not contain a component normal to the free surface.

Another more general issue concerns the ability of this solver to solve capillary flows involving a free surface that contacts a wall.

Any suggestion/comments would be greatly appreciated.

You could try the normalMotionDir switch to see if the gravity problem can be resolved. Otherwise, it would be best if you could provide Zeljko with a test-case that reproduces the problem.

The freeSurface library doesn't have contact angle corrections at walls, so trying to model that would require writing some code. An existing example would be:
Finite element simulation of three-dimensional free-surface flow problems with dynamic contact lines. M.A. Walkley , P.H. Gaskell, P.K. Jimack, M.A. Kelmanson and J.L. Summers, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS.

I think an addition like this would be very useful, if you're able to implement it in the free-surface library.

Hello Sandeep,

Thanks for the suggestions. I recall that you have some experience concerning Marangoni flows. Have you tried using this particular solver?

Cheers,
Frank