Two apparently different interfacial stress formulations constructed from the diffuse interface free energy model

Abstract

To express the capillary stress in the diffuse interface method, there are two different formulations in the literature: one formulation is proportional to the density and the other is to the density gradient. Confusingly, these two apparently different formulations both have been widely used for the same purpose without much attention in the difference. In the present study, we theoretically show that only the latter represents the capillary stress and the former represents the stress due to the non-equilibrium irreversible process in the fluid. The formulations are analyzed not only for the one-component fluid but also for the multi-component fluid. In the prediction of the incompressible flow of one-component fluids, the two formulations turn out to give the identical velocity field, but not the pressure field even in this case.