Title: Numerical investigation on head-on droplet collisions based on modified coupled level set-VOF

Authors: Xiaohang Qu; Qianjian Guo; Xiaoni Qi

Addresses: College of Traffic and Vehicle Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, No. 266 West Xincun Road, Zibo 255049, China ' College of Traffic and Vehicle Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, No. 266 West Xincun Road, Zibo 255049, China ' College of Traffic and Vehicle Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, No. 266 West Xincun Road, Zibo 255049, China

Abstract: Seawater droplet collision phenomenon exists widely in marine environments. A model is developed for the collision process of seawater droplets composed of various salts. The head-on collision of binary equal-sized seawater droplets has been investigated based on the phase interface tracing method of coupled level set-VOF with the adaptive mesh refinement. The initialisation method of phase function, the solution method of convection transport equation of the phase function, the construction and realisation method of phase interface and the method of function re-initialisation are developed. The tetradecane droplet collisions are numerically studied to validate the numerical method. The results show good agreement with experimental data from the literature. The head-on collisions of seawater droplet are first numerically investigated at various Weber numbers (from 0.5 to 200). Different collision outcomes have been observed for various parameters, such as coalescence and reflection separation. The critical Weber number of separation is obtained. The evolution of the droplet's kinetic energy, the surface energy and the dissipation energy as well as the maximum deformation for seawater droplets is also evaluated. This work contributes to a fundamental understanding of the mechanism of seawater droplet collision and the application of droplet collision models to related processes.

Keywords: droplets collision; seawater; numerical investigation; modified coupled level set-VOF; M-CLSVOF.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2026.156020

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2026 Vol.26 No.5, pp.277 - 296

Received: 11 Jun 2024
Accepted: 08 Jan 2025
Published online: 01 Sep 2026 *

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