Three-dimensional phase-field simulations of water freezing and thawing at pore-scale

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Strachota, Pavel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Strachota, Pavel
author_facet Strachota, Pavel
contents This work deals with numerical simulation of water freezing and thawing in a complex three-dimensional geometry of a porous medium. The porous structure is represented by a virtual container filled with glass beads. Phase transition modeling is approached at both macro-scale and micro-scale, combining heat transfer in a heterogeneous medium and a phase-field approximation of the Gibbs-Thomson relation by means of the Allen-Cahn equation. The formulation of the model contains novel components tailored for the given purpose. At the macro-scale, surface tension effects are negligible and phase transition focusing based on temperature can replace the Allen-Cahn equation. In contrast to that, simulations of equilibrium states at the micro-scale allow to eliminate the heat equation by assuming constant supercooling. For numerical solution, an efficient hybrid parallel algorithm based on the finite volume method and the Runge-Kutta-Merson solver with adaptive time stepping are employed. The results of different model variants at different scales are discussed. In a parametric study, the full phase-field model is demonstrated to deliver consistent results across a wide range of surface tension values, exhibiting curvature-induced premelting if surface tension is artificially exaggerated. As surface tension tends to the realistic values, the results of the phase-field approach those of the simplifed temperature-driven phase transition model. In addition, micro-scale simulations of water freezing at different supercooling values aim to predict the unfrozen water content and compare the results with data from literature. Numerical stability, accuracy, and computational costs are also discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_01672
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Three-dimensional phase-field simulations of water freezing and thawing at pore-scale
Strachota, Pavel
Computational Physics
This work deals with numerical simulation of water freezing and thawing in a complex three-dimensional geometry of a porous medium. The porous structure is represented by a virtual container filled with glass beads. Phase transition modeling is approached at both macro-scale and micro-scale, combining heat transfer in a heterogeneous medium and a phase-field approximation of the Gibbs-Thomson relation by means of the Allen-Cahn equation. The formulation of the model contains novel components tailored for the given purpose. At the macro-scale, surface tension effects are negligible and phase transition focusing based on temperature can replace the Allen-Cahn equation. In contrast to that, simulations of equilibrium states at the micro-scale allow to eliminate the heat equation by assuming constant supercooling. For numerical solution, an efficient hybrid parallel algorithm based on the finite volume method and the Runge-Kutta-Merson solver with adaptive time stepping are employed. The results of different model variants at different scales are discussed. In a parametric study, the full phase-field model is demonstrated to deliver consistent results across a wide range of surface tension values, exhibiting curvature-induced premelting if surface tension is artificially exaggerated. As surface tension tends to the realistic values, the results of the phase-field approach those of the simplifed temperature-driven phase transition model. In addition, micro-scale simulations of water freezing at different supercooling values aim to predict the unfrozen water content and compare the results with data from literature. Numerical stability, accuracy, and computational costs are also discussed.
title Three-dimensional phase-field simulations of water freezing and thawing at pore-scale
topic Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.01672