Development of a Low-Dissipation Diffuse Interface Method for Compressible Multiphase Flow

Our goal is to construct a diffuse interface method suitable for shock dominated two-phase flows in the hypersonic regime – our primary interest is the study of high-speed droplet deformation and breakup. We use a 5-equation model of the Euler equations as the basis for simulating two-phase flow. Spatial fluxes are handled through the use of a low dissipation flux-vector splitting algorithm with a combination of MUSCL and a tangent of hyperbola for interface capturing (THINC) reconstruction for the material interface. The method is implemented into the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) framework provided by AMReX. The method is validated against canonical test problems: a material advection problem for the interface sharpening scheme and a two-phase Sod shock tube problem for the capability to handle shockwaves and material interfaces simultaneously. Test cases of a Mach 2.4 shock/water column interaction demonstrate the improvements of the low dissipation scheme and that the method accurately replicates the phenomena found in experimental tests. The method is used to simulate a 3D Mach 1.47 shock/droplet interaction and the simulation results are compared to experimental data.