A numerical method for two phase flows with insoluble surfactants

In many practical multiphase flow problems, i.e. treatment of gas emboli and various microfluidic applications, the effect of interfacial surfactants, or surface reacting agents, on the surface tension between the fluids is important. The surfactant concentration on an interface separating the fluids can be modeled with a time dependent differential equation defined on the moving and deforming interface. The equations for the location of the interface and the surfactant concentration on the interface are coupled with the Navier–Stokes equations. These equations include the singular surface tension forces from the interface on the fluid, which depend on the interfacial surfactant concentration.A new accurate and inexpensive numerical method for simulating the evolution of insoluble surfactants is presented in this paper. It is based on an explicit yet Eulerian discretization of the interface, which for two dimensional flows allows for the use of uniform one dimensional grids to discretize the equation for the interfacial surfactant concentration. A finite difference method is used to solve the Navier–Stokes equations on a regular grid with the forces from the interface spread to this grid using a regularized delta function. The timestepping is based on a Strang splitting approach.Drop deformation in shear flows in two dimensions is considered. Specifically, the effect of surfactant concentration on the deformation of the drops is studied for different sets of flow parameters.