A study on the extension of a VOF/PLIC based method to a curvilinear co-ordinate system

The conventional volume-of-fluid method has the potential to deal with large free surface deformation on a fixed Cartesian grid. However, when free-surface flows are within or over complex geometries of industrial relevance, such as free-surface flows over offshore oil platforms, it is advantageous to extend the method originally written in Cartesian forms into non-Cartesian forms. In the present study, an algorithm similar to the algorithm described by Rudman in 1997 is proposed for use with curvilinear co-ordinates. This extension results in the ability to model complex geometries which could not be modelled using the original algorithm. Excellent agreement between the solutions obtained on both orthogonal and non-orthogonal meshes is achieved, although in general the L ₁ error, based on the exact solution, on the non-orthogonal mesh is slightly higher than that on the orthogonal mesh. The extended fluid flow solving capacity of the present method is demonstrated through its application to a non-orthogonal Rayleigh–Taylor instability problem.