Viscous bubbly flows simulation with an interface SPH model

The multi-fluid SPH formulation by Grenier et al. (2009) is extended to study practical problems where bubbly flows play an important role for production processes of the offshore industry. Since these flows are dominated by viscous and surface tension effects, the proposed formulation includes specific models of these physical effects and validations on specific benchmark test cases are carefully performed. The numerical outputs are validated against analytical and numerical reference solutions, and accuracy and convergence of the proposed numerical model are assessed. This model is then used to simulate viscous incompressible bubbly flows of increasing complexity. These flows include the evolution of isolated bubbles, the merging of two bubbles, and the separation process in a bubbly flow. In each case, results are compared to reference solutions and the influence of the. Bond number on these interfacial flow evolutions is investigated in detail. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.