A fully adaptive front tracking method for the simulation of two phase flows

•The Lagrangian remeshing algorithm intrinsically preserves volume and shape.•Interpolation-induced wrinkles at the Lagragian interface were successfully removed.•Density ratio and initial bubble shape play more influence at high Reynolds numbers.•Two wobbling cases were presented: a zigzag path evolving to spiral and a pulsating bubble with vortex shedding in a varicose mode.•A zigzag-spiral path and a varicose-mode vortex shedding were successfully simulated.

This work presents a computational methodology for the simulation of three-dimensional, two-phase flows, based on adaptive strategies for space discretization, as well as a varying time-step approach. The method is based on the Front-Tracking method and the discretization of the Eulerian domain employs a Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement strategy along with an implicit–explicit pressure correction scheme. Modelling of the Lagrangian interface was carried out with the GNU Triangulated Surface (GTS) library, which greatly reduced the difficulties of interface handling in 3D. The methodology was applied to a series of rising bubble simulations and validated employing experimental results and compared to literature numerics. Finally, the algorithm was applied to the simulation of two cases of bubbles rising in the wobbling regime. The use of adaptive mesh refinement strategies led to physically insightful results, which otherwise would not be possible in a serial code with a uniform mesh.