Numerical simulation of two-fluid flow of electrolyte solution with charged deforming interfaces

Abstract

Abstract The authors’ volume-of-fluid based electrokinetic flow model for multiphase flow with fluid–fluid interfaces, recently extended by them to allow for interfacial charge, is refined and more comprehensively validated under dynamic conditions. Validation is performed using (i) an analytical solution for drop relaxation in the presence of ions and interfacial charge, and (ii) published experimental observations of the shape evolution of a critically charged water droplet in air, undergoing Rayleigh instability. Predictions based on two methods of representing the electrical force, in combination with two different numerical treatments of the interfacial charge, are compared. It is shown..