Development of a Multi-Plane Interface Reconstruction to Enable Modeling of Atomizing Flows in Volume of Fluid Simulations

For simulations of liquid-gas flows that undergo topology changes, the ideal representation of the interface would be capable of conserving mass and be truthful to the structures in the flow. The need to conserve mass has been largely met by geometric Volume of Fluid methods. These methods, however, typically induce erroneous breakup due to numerical errors once the interfacial structures become near the scale of the mesh size. To prevent the numerical method from dictating when structures breakup, we have developed a novel multi-plane reconstruction technique that allows capturing of sub-cell structures while still maintaining discrete mass conservation. With the small structures maintained, physical models can then be applied to address the onset of breakup and the ensuing physics. In this talk, we will compare the new multi-plane reconstruction method to the current de-facto standard, PLIC, for several canonical test cases along with the case of an atomizing liquid jet. Models for the breakup of sub-cell structures will be explored.