A multi-physics single-phase SPH scheme to simulate droplet interaction with a solid surface including thermo-capillary effects

Cen, Chunze, English, Aaron, Fourtakas, Georgios, Lind, Steven and Rogers, Benedict D. 2026. A multi-physics single-phase SPH scheme to simulate droplet interaction with a solid surface including thermo-capillary effects. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 261 , 128570. 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2026.128570

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (6MB)

Abstract

This paper presents a single-phase 3-D smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) scheme to simulate thermo-capillary flows in micro-scale and nano-scale fluid engineering. This study focuses on droplet interaction with a solid surface that includes thermo-capillary forces known as Marangoni forces with temperature-dependent surface tension, heat transfer and buoyancy. To avoid excessive and prohibitive computational runtimes, the new formulation is implemented within the single-phase weakly compressible SPH formalism. While SPH is ideally suited to such highly nonlinear flows, little is known about the suitability of using SPH for the modelling of droplet-surface interactions with a single-phase model at the micro scale. The present work investigates the advantages and limitations of the new approach with the scheme being validated using 2-D and 3-D test cases including natural convection in a cavity, droplet impact on a solid surface, and droplet migration. Numerical results are in good agreement with the reference and experimental results. The extension to 3-D provides a more accurate prediction of the droplet displacement compared to previous SPH studies on droplet migration. The efficiency benefits in computing only one phase are significant, especially in 3-D. However, the final case of rapid droplet spreading on a surface highlights that the current single-phase model, whilst showing good agreement in the early stage of the flow, exhibits limitations in cases where the presence of a second phase needs to be considered.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Engineering
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2026-02-20
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0017-9310
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 March 2026
Date of Acceptance:	17 February 2026
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2026 10:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/185472

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item