Comparison of numerical results for laminar wavy liquid film flows down a vertical plate for various time-differencing schemes for the volume fraction equation

Liquid film flows are classified into waveless laminar, wavy laminar, and turbulent flows depending on the Reynolds number or the flow stability. Since the wavy motions of the film flows are so intricate and nonlinear, studies on them have largely been experimental. Most numerical approaches have been limited to the waveless flow regime. The various free surface-tracking schemes adopted for this problem were used to more accurately estimate the average film thickness, rather than to capture the unsteady wavy motion. In this study, the wavy motions in laminar wavy liquid film flows with Reynolds numbers of 200-1000 were simulated with various numerical schemes based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method for interface tracking. The results from each numerical scheme were compared with the experimental results in terms of the average film thickness, the wave velocity, and the wave amplitude.