Coupling of the VOF and the two-fluid models for the numerical investigation of aerated stepped spillway

In the current study, two-phase flow of water and air over a stepped spillway is probed in the form of a two-dimensional incompressible viscous flow. A novel numerical approach is used for the numerical simulation which is a combination of two models: volume of fluid (VOF) which uses an interface tracking algorithm for the simulation of the two-phase flow and two-fluid model which is based on time and space averaged equations and cannot track the interface explicitly. The most important issue in the introduced approach is to couple the two basic methods and select a proper criterion for status change between two basic methods. The latter criterion is based on an approximation from local distribution of the interface at each cell. In the hybrid method. In order to investigate the aeration effect in the stepped spillway, the air suction is generated by designing some holes at the upper edge of the steps and considering atmosphere pressure for these areas. The obtained results divulge the amount of dispersion is low at the beginning part of the step and also the hybrid model take more advantages from VOF, while in the lower steps where the flow disperses two-fluid model has hegemony. The results are compared in the form of pressure contours and streamlines as well as volume fraction counters. The comparison shows that the results of the proposed method is closer to the experimental results with respect to each of the basic model.