Article,
Computing Existence and Stability of Capillary Surfaces Using Surface Evolver
AIAA Journal, 42 (2): 289--295 (2004)
Abstract
In response to the growing need for design specific solutions predicting interface existence and stability in an ever-increasing number of low-gravity fluids systems applications, K. A. Brakke's surface evolver (SE) algorithm, developed to compute complex interfacial static equilibria, is demonstrated to successfully compute critical contact angles and the onset of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability. SE is first benchmarked against limited available analytical solutions and then extended to solve the specific problem of stability in rectangular containers where the effect of discontinuous boundaries and wetting play a dramatic role. In this new light SE is shown to serve the purposes of an equilibrium interface solver, critical contact angle solver, and a capillary stability solver. Concerning the latter and in contrast to other numerical dynamic stability schemes, the significantly increased time efficiency and accuracy of the approach for capillary stability problems of significant geometric complexity argue for the use of SE as a valuable tool for spacecraft systems design.
