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On diffuse interface modeling and simulation of surfactants in two-phase fluid flow. (English) Zbl 1373.76334

Summary: An existing phase-fieldmodel of two immiscible fluids with a single soluble surfactant present is discussed in detail. We analyze the well-posedness of the model and provide strong evidence that it is mathematically ill-posed for a large set of physically relevant parameters. As a consequence, critical modifications to the model are suggested that substantially increase the domain of validity. Carefully designed numerical simulations offer informative demonstrations as to the sharpness of our theoretical results and the qualities of the physical model. A fully coupled hydrodynamic test-case demonstrates the potential to capture also non-trivial effects on the overall flow.

MSC:

76T30 Three or more component flows
76M10 Finite element methods applied to problems in fluid mechanics
65M60 Finite element, Rayleigh-Ritz and Galerkin methods for initial value and initial-boundary value problems involving PDEs
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