A generalized hybrid method for surfactant dynamics

Abstract: In this paper, we develop a generalized hybrid method for both two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) surfactant dynamics. While the Navier-Stokes equations are solved by the Eulerian method, the surfactant transport is tracked by a Lagrangian particle method, in which the remeshing technique is employed to prevent particle clustering. For the mass redistribution during remeshing, the redistribution weight is selected with weighted least squares, which shares the theoretical basis of the moving least squares method (MLS) and enables the present hybrid method to work in both 2-D and 3-D cases. This optimized mass redistribution effectively strengthens the robustness of the present hybrid method, as validated by 2-D topological changes of the dumbbell. The conservation, accuracy, and convergence of the present hybrid method have also been validated with both 2-D and 3-D test cases, including a translation circle/sphere, a deformed circle/sphere in the shear flow, and droplet deformation.