A three-dimensional volume-of-fluid method for reconstructing and advecting three-material interfaces forming contact lines

We introduce a piecewise-linear, volume-of-fluid method for reconstructing and advecting three-dimensional interfaces and contact lines formed by three materials. The new method employs a set of geometric constructs that can be used in conjunction with any volume-tracking scheme. In this work, we used the mass-conserving scheme of Youngs to handle two-material cells, perform interface reconstruction in three-material cells, and resolve the contact line. The only information required by the method is the available volume fraction field. Although the proposed method is order dependent and requires a priori information on material ordering, it is suitable for typical contact line applications, where the material representing the contact surface is always known. Following the reconstruction of the contact surface, to compute the interface orientation in a three-material cell, the proposed method minimizes an error function that is based on volume fraction distribution around that cell. As an option, the minimization procedure also allows the user to impose a contact angle. Performance of the proposed method is assessed via both static and advection test cases. The tests show that the new method preserves the accuracy and mass-conserving property of the Youngs method in volume-tracking three materials.