Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

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Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enganabound

Numerical simulations of Phan-Thien-Tanner viscoelastic fluid flows based

on the SPH method
Xiaoyang Xu a, *, Jie Cheng a, Sai Peng b, Peng Yu b
a
School of Computer Science and Technology, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
b
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Turbulence Research and Applications, Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science
and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Numerical simulations of viscoelastic fluid flows are always a hot issue in the field of computational fluid dy­
SPH namics and the study of their complex rheological properties has important academic and engineering appli­
Phan-Thien-Tanner model cation value. In the present work, we develop a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method for simulating
Viscoelastic fluid flow
transient viscoelastic fluid flows governed by the Phan-Thien-Tanner (PTT) constitutive equation. To improve
Poiseuille flow
Droplet dynamics
the computational accuracy of the SPH method, the mixed symmetric correction algorithm of kernel gradient is
implemented. To remove the particle clustering and unphysical fracture in fluid stretching which is named as the
tensile instability, the artificial stress model is added into the momentum equation. We firstly apply the proposed
SPH method to solve the plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT viscoelastic fluid, in which the effectiveness and
advantage of the method are verified by comparing the SPH solution with those obtained by the finite volume
method (FVM) and analyzing the l2 norm error of different SPH solutions to the FVM solution. Then, the method
is employed to simulate the impact behavior of a PTT viscoelastic droplet with a rigid plate. In particular, we not
only investigate the spreading behavior of PTT viscoelastic droplet after impacting the rigid plate, but also for the
first time capture and analyze the bouncing behavior of droplet by decreasing the Reynolds number. The in­
fluences of the Reynolds number, the Weissenberg number, the solvent viscosity ratio, and the PTT elongational
parameter on the droplet dynamics behavior are further deeply studied. Numerical results demonstrate that the
SPH method proposed in this paper is a powerful computation tool for simulating PTT viscoelastic fluid flows and
is capable of effectively describing their complex rheological properties and free surface variation characteristics.

1. Introduction
Viscoelastic fluid flows are widely present in many industrial pro­
duction processes, such as extrusion and injection of polymers, ink jet
devices, container filling in the food and cosmetic industries, and so on.
Usually, these flows involve complex free surfaces. To improve pro­
ductive efficiency and product performance, the study of complex
rheological properties of viscoelastic fluids has attracted the attention of
many scientists. Viscoelastic free surface flows do not have analytic
solutions and so for this reason, development of numerical methods for
predicting this class of flow problems has been a hot issue in the field of
computational fluid dynamics. Typical numerical techniques for dealing
with viscoelastic fluid flows are grid-based, including finite volume
(FVM), finite element (FEM), and finite difference (FDM) methods.
Nevertheless, to capture the moving free surface, the volume of fluid [1],
marker and cell (MAC) [2], or level set [3] methods need to be employed
additionally, which makes the implementation procedure very complex.
In the last few years, grid-based methods have been employed to
simulate viscoelastic fluid flows governed by different constitutive
models such as upper Convected-Maxwell (UCM) model [4,5],
Oldroyd-B model [6,7], FENE-CR model [8–10], Giesekus model [11,
12], Phan-Thien-Tanner (PTT) model [13,14], among others.
Among these models, the PTT model has been the subject of work by
some scientists since it provides a better fit to the rheology of polymer
melts and concentrated solutions than some other simple models such as
UCM or Oldroyd-B models [13]. At present, several works have been
made to investigate viscoelastic free surface flows of PTT fluids. de Paulo
et al. [15] developed a MAC technique to simulate two-dimensional (2D)
PTT viscoelastic free surface flows. In their work, the extrudate swell
and the jet flowing onto a rigid plate were investigated. Tomé et al. [16]

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xiaoyang.xu@xust.edu.cn (X. Xu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enganabound.2023.11.020
Received 25 September 2023; Received in revised form 18 November 2023; Accepted 18 November 2023
0955-7997/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Xu et al. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

extended the work of de Paulo et al. [15] to three-dimensional (3D) 2. Governing equations
space and simulated 3D extrudate swell and a 3D jet flowing onto a rigid
plate. Evans et al. [17] simulated transient planar stick-slip flow of a PTT In a Lagrangian frame, the mass and momentum conservation
fluid and discussed the polymer stress behavior around the stress sin­ equations for the flow of an isothermal, viscoelastic, weakly compress­
gularity at the stick-slip point. França et al. [18] adopted FDM to ible fluid are respectively written as [44]
investigate 2D PTT viscoelastic binary droplet collision, where the free
dρ ∂vβ
surface dynamic was accomplished by the front-tracking representation = − ρ β, (1)
with marker particles, combined with the MAC method.
dt ∂x
In the past few decades, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) dvα 1 ∂σ αβ
method [19,20] has shown a substantial potential in dealing with free = + Fα , (2)
dt ρ ∂xβ
surface flows and gradually become an alternative to grid-based nu­
merical methods. The SPH method is actually a Lagrangian particle where ρ is the fluid density, t is the time, xβ is the spatial coordinate, vβ is
method, in which the problem to be solved is discretized by a set of the velocity, σαβ is the total stress tensor, Fα is the external force acting
particles rather than fixed meshes. These particles could be moving on the fluid, and dtd is the material derivative, i.e., dtd = ∂∂t + vβ ∂x∂β .
according to the solutions of governing equations. Thus, the governing
The total stress tensor σαβ in (2) is usually decomposed into the
equations are finally converted into the equations of motion for these
pressure p, the viscous stress τsαβ , and the elastic stress ταp β , i.e.,
particles. In comparison with grid-based methods, the SPH method has
the following advantages for flow simulations: (a) the moving free sur­ σ αβ = − pδαβ + ταs β + ταp β , (3)
faces can be modeled without the need of any explicit surface tracking
techniques; (b) the advection and transport of the system could be where δαβ is the Kronecker function. The viscous stress ταs β is calculated
calculated very well due to its Lagrangian and adaptive nature; (c) nu­ based on the Newtonian fluid model
merical implementation for complex physical problems is a compara­
tively easy task. Owing to these merits, the SPH method has been τsαβ = 2ηs dαβ , (4)
adopted to simulate a wide variety of scientific and engineering prob­
lems including dam-break flow [21–24], explosion [25–27], biome­ where ηs is the Newtonian solvent viscosity and dαβ is the deformation
chanics [28,29], multi-phase flows [30–32], heat transfer [33–35], rate tensor
fluid-structure interaction [36–38], viscoelastic fluid flows [39–42], etc. (
1 ∂vα ∂vβ
)
Regarding the application of SPH to viscoelastic free surface flows, d αβ = + . (5)
2 ∂xβ ∂xα
Fang et al. [43] added an artificial stress term into the SPH method to
alleviate the tensile instability problem and simulated the spreading
deformation of a 2D Oldroyd-B droplet impacting a rigid plate. Their 2.1. PTT constitutive equation
method was validated by comparing the SPH results with those of Tomé
et al. [6]. Xu et al. [44] explored the feasibility of SPH in handing 3D-un­ To close the governing equations, a constitutive equation related to
steady viscoelastic free surface flows, where the impact of a 3D the elastic stress ταp β is required. In this paper, we consider the PTT
Oldroyd-B droplet with a rigid wall and 3D jet buckling problem were constitutive model [13,15]
investigated. Zainali et al. [45] developed an improved multiphase SPH
method with an improved interface treatment to simulate the defor­ ∇
f (tr(τ))ταpβ + λ1 τpαβ = 2ηp dαβ . (6)
mation of a Newtonian droplet in a viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid. Vahabi
et al. [46] studied the interaction of a pair of in-line bubbles ascending in In the PTT constitutive model, f(tr(τ)) is defined as
an Oldroyd-B liquid using a weakly compressible SPH method. Moinfar
ελ1
et al. [47] analyzed the deformation of a Giesekus droplet under simple f (tr(τ)) = 1 + tr(τ), (7)
ηp
shear flow. Despite these successful applications of SPH to viscoelastic
fluid flows, most of these works are made based on the UCM, Oldroyd-B,
where ε is the PTT elongational parameter, λ1 is the relaxation time of
or Giesekus models, and SPH simulations of viscoelastic fluid flows ∇
based on the PTT model are very rare. the fluid, ηp is the polymer viscosity, and ταp β is the upper-convected
In this paper, we develop the SPH method for simulations of 2D derivative of ταp β
transient viscoelastic fluid flows governed by the PTT constitutive
equation. To improve the computational accuracy of the SPH method, ∇ dταp β ∂vα γβ ∂vβ αγ
ταpβ = − τ − τ . (8)
the mixed symmetric correction algorithm of kernel gradient is imple­ dt ∂xγ p ∂xγ p
mented. To remove the particle clustering and unphysical fracture in
From Eqs. (6)–(8), we obtain the PTT constitutive equation as
fluid stretching which is named as the tensile instability, the artificial
stress model is added into the momentum equation. We firstly apply the αβ
d τp ∂vα ∂vβ αγ f (tr(τ)) αβ 2ηp αβ
= γ τγβ
p + τ − τp + d . (9)
proposed SPH method to solve the plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT dt ∂x ∂xγ p λ1 λ1
viscoelastic fluid, in which the effectiveness and advantage of the
It is obvious that the Oldroyd-B constitutive equation can be recov­
method are verified by comparing the SPH solution with those obtained
ered by simply setting the PTT elongational parameter ε=0 in the code.
by the FVM method and analyzing the l2 norm error of different SPH
solutions to the FVM solution. Then, the method is employed to simulate
the impact of a PTT viscoelastic droplet with a rigid plate. In particular, 2.2. Equation of state
we not only investigate the spreading behavior of PTT viscoelastic
droplet after impacting the rigid plate, but also for the first time capture There are two commonly-used methods for solving the governing
and analyze the bouncing behavior of droplet by decreasing the Rey­ equations in the framework of SPH. One is the incompressible SPH
nolds number. The influences of the Reynolds number, the Weissenberg method [48], in which the fluid pressure is implicitly evaluated from a
number, the solvent viscosity ratio, and the PTT elongational parameter pressure Poisson equation; the other is the weakly compressible SPH
on the droplet dynamics behavior are further deeply studied. method [49], in which the pressure is explicitly calculated from a stiff
equation of state. In this paper, we follow the latter by using the
following equation of state [49]

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X. Xu et al. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

p(ρ) = c2 (ρ − ρ0 ), (10) ⎛ ∑mj ∑mj ⎞

xji xji Wij yji xji Wij
⎜ j ρj ρj ⎟
where c is the speed of sound and ρ0 is the initial fluid density. In weakly ⎜
M = ⎜∑
j
⎟
(18)
⎟.
compressible SPH, the Mach number should be less than 0.1 so that the ⎝ mj
xji yji Wij
∑mj
yji yji Wij
⎠
artificial compressible flow is sufficiently close to the flow behavior of j
ρj j
ρj
truly incompressible fluid. The larger c is, the smaller the time step Δt
should be. By using the new kernel gradient ∂W ̃ ij /∂xβ , the computational ac­
i
curacy of the SPH method is greatly improved. Also, the correction
3. The SPH method matrix in this work does not contain the calculation of the first-order
derivatives of kernel. Thus, it has higher applicability to the choice of
3.1. Improved SPH discretizations kernel and better stability for performing the simulations. More details
about the improved SPH discretization can be found in the literature
There are several different discrete forms of governing equations in [49,56,57].
the framework of SPH. In this paper, the following SPH discretizations
for mass and momentum conservation equations and the PTT constitu­ 3.2. Artificial stress model
tive equation are adopted [43,49]
There forms small clump of particles when the SPH method is
d ρi ∑ ( β ) ∂Wij
= mj vi − vβj , (11) directly applied to viscoelastic fluid flows, implying that the phenomena
dt ∂xβi
j of particle clustering and unphysical fracture named as the tensile
( ) instability problem occur in fluid stretching. To resolve this problem, the
αβ
dvαi
=
∑ σ αβ σj
mj i2 + 2
∂Wij
+ Fiα , (12) artificial stress model is specially added into the momentum equation.
dt j
ρi ρj ∂xiβ The basic idea behind it is to introduce a small short-range repulsive
force between a pair of neighboring particles to prevent them from
( )
dταp β 1 1 getting too close when the fluid is in the state of stretch. Thereupon, the
= kiαγ τγβ βγ γα
p, i + ki τp, i −
αβ
f (tr(τ))τp, i + 2η dαβ , (13) SPH discretization of the momentum conservation equation is modified
dt λ1 λ1 p
i as [43,59]:
( )
where ( α)
dv ∑ σ αβ σj
αβ
∂W̃ ij
( ) = mj i2 + 2 + Sijαβ + Fiα (19)
σ αi β = − pδαβ + ηs kiαβ + kiβα + ταp,β i , (14) dt i j
ρ i ρ j ∂xβi

( )
∂vα ∑mj ( ) ∂W where Sαijβ is the artificial stress. Sαijβ is defined as
(15)
ij
kiαβ = = vαj − vαi ,
∂xβ i ρ j ∂xβi ( )
(20)
j
Sijαβ = fijn Rαi β + Rjαβ ,
i and j are the index of particle, m is the particle mass, Wij = W(|xi − xj|,
h)is the kernel function, h is the smooth length of the kernel function. where n = W(0, h)/W(Δx, h), fij = Wij/W(Δx,h), and Rαβ is the artificial
With respect to the kernel function, the quintic spline kernel is stress tensor. To compute Rαβ, a new coordinate frame (x′, y′) is specially
employed because of its better accuracy and stability resulting from the constructed by rotating the original (x, y). The angle of coordinate
continuous second derivative [50]: rotation θ is given by
⎧ 1 2σ xy
⎪
⎪ (3 − q)5 − 6(2 − q)5 + 15(1 − q)5 , 0 ≤ q < 1 θ = tan− 1 xx , (21)
⎨ 2 σ − σyy
(3 − q)5 − 6(2 − q)5 , 1≤q<2
W(r, h) = W0 × , (16)
⎪
⎪ (3 − q)5 , 2≤q<3 where σxx, σyy, and σxy are the total stress tensor in the original (x, y).
⎩
0, q≥3
Note that the purpose of introducing the rotation angle is to maintain the
where q = r/h and r is the distance between two particles. The conservation properties of the system [43,59]. Then, σ′xx and σ′yy in the
normalization factor W0 takes the value of 7/64πh2 in 2D space. new (x′, y′) is calculated according to:
In comparison with grid-based methods, the computational accuracy xx
σ′yy = σxx cos2 θ + 2σxy sinθcosθ + σyy sin2 θ, . (22)
of SPH is comparatively low, which limits its application to some com­ σ′ = σxx sin2 θ − 2σ xy sinθcosθ + σ yy cos2 θ,
plex flow problems. The low computational accuracy originates from the
particle approximations adopted in SPH and discontinuities caused by Once we obtain σ′xx and σ′yy, the diagonal components R′xx and R′yy of
irregular distribution of particles. To improve the computational accu­ the artificial stress tensor in the new (x′, y′) is determined by
racy of SPH, some researchers have developed various modified SPH ⎧ ′xx
algorithms, including reproducing kernel particle methods [51], finite ⎨ − ε σ , σ′xx > 0;
particle method [52,53], modified SPH method [54,55], symmetric SPH R′xx
= ρ2 , (23)
⎩
method [56,57], improved SPH method [58], and so on. In this paper, 0, otherwise
the mixed symmetric correction algorithm of kernel gradient [49,56,57]
where ε is the artificial stress parameter with the value ranging from 0 to
is implemented, that is, the kernel gradient ∂Wij /∂xβi in the SPH dis­
1. Finally, the artificial stress tensor Rαβ is calculated from the relations
cretization (11)-(15) is modified as
xx yy
⎛ ̃ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞ Rxx = R′ cos2 θ + R′ sin2 θ,
∂W ij ∂Wij xx yy
(24)
⎜ ∂xi ⎟ ⎜ ∂xi ⎟ Ryy = R′ sin2 θ + R′ cos2 θ, .
′xx yy
⎜
⎜
⎟ ⎜
⎟ = M− 1 ⎜
⎟
⎟, (17) R = cosθsinθ(R − R′ )
xy

⎝ ∂W̃ ⎠ ⎝ ∂Wij ⎠
ij
∂yi ∂yi 3.3. Artificial viscosity

where M is the correction matrix defined by

Artificial viscosity is usually employed in SPH to be capable of
modeling shock wave or to improve the stability of the method. Here,

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X. Xu et al. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

the artificial viscosity is also added into the momentum equation. particles are also kept unchanged. Each dummy particle is associated
Accordingly, we have the SPH discretization of the momentum equation with a boundary particle in the normal direction of boundary. To satisfy
( α) ( αβ
) the Newman boundary conditions of pressure and elastic stress, the
dv ∑ σ αβ σ j ∂W̃ ij
pressure and elastic stress of dummy particles are set to be the same as
= mj i2 + 2 + Sijαβ − Πij δαβ + Fiα , (25)
dt i j
ρi ρj ∂xβi those of the associated boundary particle. The velocities of dummy
particles are set to be zero to satisfy no-slip boundary condition.
where Πij is the artificial viscosity. Πij has the form [60]:
⎧
3.5. Time integration scheme
2
⎨ − αΠ cij φij + βΠ φij , v ⋅r < 0
⎪
(26)
ij ij
Πij = ρij .
⎪
⎩
0, vij ⋅rij ≥ 0 To solve the governing equations, the leapfrog time integration
scheme is adopted due to its high computational efficiency. Let Xi de­
where αΠ and βΠ are the artificial viscosity parameters, notes the vector of variables (ρi , vαi , ταp,iβ ) and Bi denotes the vector of the
ci + cj right-hand sides of governing equations. Then, the leapfrog time inte­
cij = , (27) gration scheme is summarized as follows [44,50]: at the end of the first
2
time step t0, Xi is advanced at half a time step, while the particle position
φij = ⃒ ⃒2
hvij ⋅rij
, (28) ri is advanced by a full time step
⃒rij ⃒ + 0.01h2 ⎧
⎪
⎪ t = t0 + Δt
⎪
⎨
Δt
ρij =
ρi + ρj
, (29) Xi (t0 + Δt/2) = Xi (t0 ) + Bi (t0 ) . (31)
2 ⎪
⎪ 2
⎪
⎩
ri (t0 + Δt) = ri (t0 ) + ui (t0 + Δt/2)Δt
vij = vi − vj, and rij = ri − rj. The term related to αΠ produces the shear
and the bulk viscosities, while that of βΠ is employed to prevent unre­ To ensure consistency with the particle position at each subsequent
alistic particle penetration, which is similar to the von-Neumann- time step, Xi is advanced by half a time step
Richtmeyer viscosity adopted in FDM. The term of 0.01h2 is added in Δt
order to avoid numerical instability when two particles are too close to Xi (t) = Xi (t − Δt / 2) + Bi (t − Δt) . (32)
2
each other.
At the end of the subsequent time step, the density, velocity, elastic
stress, and displacement of the particles are advanced according to the
3.4. Boundary conditions standard leapfrog scheme
⎧
⎨ t = t + Δt
In this paper, there are two kinds of boundary conditions involved: X (t + Δt/2) = Xi (t − Δt/2) + Bi (t)Δt . (33)
one is the free surface boundary condition; the other is the wall ⎩ i
ri (t + Δt) = ri (t) + ui (t + Δt/2)Δt
boundary condition.
For the free surface boundary condition, the free surface particles Finally, in order to maintain the numerical stability, the time step Δt
need to be identified. The stress-free condition σ ⋅ n = 0 should be should be constrained by the following CFL and mass and viscous-
imposed on these particles. However, this condition is implicitly satis­ diffusion conditions [44,50]:
fied with SPH as the stress-free condition is represented in a surface ( √̅̅̅̅̅ )
integral which is neglected in SPH approximation for gradients and h h h2
Δt ≤ min , min , 0.125 , (34)
happens to be zero [61]. As such, the free surface can be modeled c i Fi υ0
naturally without the need of any explicit surface tracking techniques.
For the wall boundary condition, we handle it by using two types of where Fi is the force per unit mass, equivalent to the magnitude of the
virtual particles, i.e., boundary particles and dummy particles [21]. particle acceleration, and υ0 = η/ρ is the kinematic viscosity.
First, only one layer of boundary particles is placed on the wall
boundary. The initial particle spacing for the boundary particles is Δx. 4. Numerical examples
However, the boundary particles do not exert an artificial repulsive
force. Instead, they participate in calculation of velocity, pressure, and 4.1. Plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT fluid
elastic stress in the governing equations in order to effectively prevent
the fluid particles from penetrating the wall boundary. The density and At present, there has no works on SPH simulation of plane Poiseuille
position of the boundary particles remain unchanged during the calcu­ flow based on the PTT model. Therefore, we select it as the first example
lation and their velocities are set to be zero in order to impose a no-slip of numerical simulation. Meanwhile, in order to better describe the flow,
boundary condition. The pressure and elastic stress are calculated ac­ we introduce the dimensionless Reynolds number
cording to the following Shepard interpolation of the adjacent fluid
ρVL
particles [21] Re = , (35)
η
∑mj
ρj Aj Wij
j
Ai = ∑mj , (30) the dimensionless Weissenberg numbers
ρ Wij j
λ1 V
(36)
j
Wi = ,
L
where A denotes the pressure or elastic stress, i is the boundary particle, j
is the fluid particle adjacent to the particle i. Although the boundary and the solvent viscosity ratio
particles are placed along the wall boundary, the supporting domain of ηs
fluid particles is still truncated by the wall boundary. Therefore, in order β= , (37)
η
to further resolve this problem, three layers of dummy particles are ar­
ranged outside the boundary with an initial particle spacing Δx. With where V and L denote the characteristic velocity and characteristic
the same as the boundary particles, the density and position of dummy length of the flow, respectively.

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X. Xu et al. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

and 8. The time changes of the u-velocity and the shear stress τxy at
points A, B, and C are further shown in Fig. 2b and Fig. 2c, respectively.
Obviously, these three monitoring points all exhibits the phenomenon of
velocity and stress overshoot. The flow reaches the steady state after t =
8. The closer the monitoring point to the rigid plate is, the smaller the u-
velocity value is. Also, points A and C are symmetrical about y = 0, and
hence their velocity values are identical. As for the shear stress τxy, the
closer the monitoring point to the rigid plate is, the larger the shear
stress value is. It is always 0 at point B, while those of points A and C are
equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.
So far, there is no transient analytical solution for the plane Poiseulle

Fig. 1. Geometry for the plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT fluid.

Fig. 1 presents the geometry of the plane Poseuille flow. At the

beginning, the fluid is located between two infinitely long flat plates.
The initial velocity of the fluid is 0. From t > 0, the fluid starts to flow
under the action of a horizontal external force F. For this problem, a
periodic boundary condition is enforced along the x-direction. Hence,
the calculation region can be chosen as Lx × Ly = 0.5 × 1. The horizontal
external force is F = 1.0. The fluid density is ρ = 1. The PTT rheological
parameters are taken as follows: Re = 2, Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε =0.25, where
the characteristic length is L = 1 and the characteristic velocity is V =
0.25. The artificial viscosity parameters are chosen to be αΠ = 1.0 and βΠ Fig. 3. Comparison of the time change of the velocity u at point B obtained by
= 2.0. The artificial stress parameter is set to be ε = 0.2 because the flow the traditional SPH, the improved SPH, and the FVM [62] methods.
pattern for this problem is rather simple. The initial particle spacing is
set to be Δx = 0.02, corresponding to 1274 fluid particles, 64 boundary
particles, and 192 dummy particles. There are three monitoring points
A, B, and C inside the flow domain, recording the time evolutions of the
velocity and shear stress. The heights of points A, B, and C to the bottom
plate are 0.25Ly, 0.5Ly, and 0.75Ly, respectively. For the kernel function,
we adopt the quintic spline function with a smoothing length of h =
1.5Δx. The speed of sound is chosen as c = 10V. A time step of Δt = 1.0
× 10− 5 is used in order to maintain the numerical stability. For the speed
of sound c, we also choose two larger values, i.e., c = 20 V and 40 V, for
further numerical experiments, and find that the results are almost
identical, indicating that c = 10 V is enough to ensure that the flow
behavior of weakly compressible fluid is fully close to that of incom­
pressible fluid. We simulate 1000,000 time steps on Lenovo ST 6800
platform using single processor within ~ 0.15 h
Fig. 2a shows the u-velocity profile along the y-axis obtained by the
present SPH method. It is observed that the u-velocity profile is sym­
metrical with respect to y = 0. Meanwhile, due to the action of the elastic
force, the u-velocity exhibits the obvious overshoot phenomenon, that is, Fig. 4. Comparison of the l2 norm error between the traditional SPH solution to
the u-velocity reaches a large value at t = 0.8, but decreases at t = 1.4 the FVM solution and the improved SPH solution to the FVM solution.

Fig. 2. SPH simulation of the plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT fluid (Re = 2, Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25): (a) the velocity profile; (b) the time change of velocity u at
points A to C; (c) the time change of elastic shear stress τxy at points A to C.

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X. Xu et al.
Fig. 5. Computational model of the impact of a PTT droplet with a rigid plate.
flow of a PTT fluid. Therefore, to validate the proposed SPH method in
simulating PTT viscoelastic fluid flows, Fig. 3 shows a comparison of the
time evolution of the velocity u at point B obtained by the present SPH
and the FVM [62] methods. Meanwhile, to illustrate the advantage of
the present SPH method in solving viscoelastic fluid flows, the solutions
resulted from the traditional SPH method are also plotted. It is seen that
both SPH solutions are in agreement with the FVM solution, but the
present SPH solution is closer to the FVM solution that of traditional
SPH.
To quantitatively illustrate the advantage of the present SPH method,
the l2 norm error is further introduced
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
∑ ̅
(RFVM − RSPH )2
Error = ∑ , (38)
(RFVM )2
where R represents the SPH or the FVM solutions. Fig. 4 plots a com­
parison of the l2 norm errors obtained by the traditional SPH in com­
parison with FVM and the present SPH in comparison with FVM. The l2
Fig. 6. SPH simulation of the impact of a PTT droplet with a rigid plate (Re = 5, Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25).
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Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485
norm error obtained by the present SPH in comparison with FVM is
obviously smaller than that of the traditional SPH, indicating that the
proposed SPH method in this paper has higher computational accuracy
than the traditional SPH method.
4.2. Impact of a PTT droplet with a rigid plate
The second numerical example chosen in this paper is the impact of a
PTT droplet with a rigid plate. This problem is widely present in many
real applications such as inkjet printing, pesticide spraying, etc. How­
ever, due to the introduction of constitutive equations, which greatly
increases the complexity of problem solving, most of the previous at­
tempts model the droplet as the Newtonian droplet. For the viscoelastic
droplet, the droplet usually spreads after it impacts the rigid plate. Many
researchers (e.g., Tomé et al. [6], Fang et al. [43], Rafiee et al. [63], and
Oishi et al. [64]) have successfully simulated it. Nevertheless, they
mainly considered the Oldroyd-B or UCM models. To the authors’ best
knowledge, investigations of the impacting droplet based on the PTT
model are very few. Actually, the PTT model can provide a better fit to
the rheology of polymer melts and concentrated solutions than the
conventional Oldroyd-B and UCM models [13,15]. Therefore, we study
it. In addition, we not only investigate the spreading behavior of PTT
droplet after impacting the rigid plate, but also capture and analyze the
bouncing behavior of droplet by decreasing the Reynolds number. We
highlight that this is the first time that the bouncing behavior of the
droplet is deeply analyzed in the frame work of SPH.
4.2.1. Spreading behavior
We first consider the spreading behavior of PTT droplet after
impacting the rigid plate. Fig. 5 presents the computational model. The
droplet at the initial state is circular, and its diameter is d0 = 0.02m. The
height of the droplet center to the rigid plate is 0.04 m. At the beginning,
the droplet has an initial falling velocity of V = 1 m⋅s− 1 . From t > 0, the
droplet starts to be accelerated to fall under the action of the gravita­
tional acceleration g. Later, the droplet impacts the rigid plate, resulting
in the spread. The density of the droplet is ρ = 1000kg⋅m− 3 . The
orientation relaxation time of the droplet is λ1 = 0.02s. The total
X. Xu et al. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485

viscosity of the droplet is η = 4Pa⋅s− 1 , in which the Newtonian solvent

viscosity is ηs = 0.4Pa ⋅ s− 1 and the polymer viscosity is ηp = 3.6Pa⋅s− 1 .
Taken the diameter of the droplet d0 and the initial falling velocity V as
the characteristic length and the characteristic velocity, respectively, the
dimensionless Reynolds number is Re = 5, the Weissenberg number is
Wi = 1, the solvent viscosity ratio is β = 0.1. The PTT elongational
parameter is ε = 0.25. The artificial viscosity parameters are set to be αΠ
= 1.0 and βΠ = 2.0, while the artificial stress parameter is ε = 0.5. The
particles comprising the droplet are set on the Cartesian grid and the
particles within the circle are retained. As a result, the droplet has a
slightly roughened appearance. In this study, the grid 100 × 100 is
adopted with an initial particle spacing Δx = 0.0002, corresponding to
7845 fluid particles, 301 boundary particles, and 903 dummy particles.
Of course, a finer Δx can also be used, which, however, leads to longer
simulation time. In this study, the results obtained by Δx = 0.0002 are
already accurate enough and it balances the computational accuracy Fig. 7. Comparison of the Oldroyd-B droplet’s spread width (Re = 5, Wi = 1, β
and the simulation time. The kernel function adopts the quintic spline = 0.1, ε = 0) obtained by the present SPH, FDM [6,64], and other SPH
function with a smoothing length of h = 1.5Δx. The speed of sound is c = [43] methods.
12.5m⋅s− 1 . A time step of Δt = 1.0 × 10− 6 s is employed to maintain the
numerical stability. For the speed of sound c, we also test c = 20m⋅s− 1
and 40 m⋅s− 1 and no noticeable differences are observed in three
different runs, indicating that c = 12.5m⋅s− 1 is enough to ensure that the
flow behavior of weakly compressible fluid is fully close to that of
incompressible fluid. For this problem, we simulate 200, 000 time steps
on Lenovo ST 6800 platform using single processor within ~ 6 h
Fig. 6 shows the SPH results of the PTT viscoelastic droplet impacting
the rigid plate at six different times t* = 1.55, 1.95, 2.35, 2.95, 3.45, and
4.95, where t* is introduced as a dimensionless time defined by t* = tV/
d0. For this problem, it is worth noting that the droplet’s spread is mainly
driven by the initial descent velocity and gravity, and the surface tension
has little influence on it. Therefore, surface tension is not considered in
this paper. Moreover, the impact of the PTT droplet with the rigid plate
involves complex free surfaces. Therefore, for the simulations of this
class of problem, there exists the bad tensile instability when the
traditional SPH method is directly used. To address this problem, the
artificial stress model is added into the momentum equation. As can be Fig. 8. Convergent analysis of the PTT droplet’s spread width (Re = 5, Wi = 1,
seen, no unrealistic fracture of droplet is exhibited, indicating the β = 0.1, ε = 0.25).
function of the artificial stress model in removing the tensile instability.
From Fig. 6, the droplet has a downward velocity at the beginning. Thus, verify the effectiveness of the present SPH method in simulating PTT
after impacting the rigid plate, the droplet exhibits a fast spread on the viscoelastic free surface flows, we specially carry out an extra numerical
wall surface, seeing t* = 1.55 and 1.95. During this time period, the fast simulation with ε = 0, while all the other parameters remain unchanged.
spread of the droplet is mainly driven by the inertial force. The The time evolution of the droplet’s spread width obtained by the present
spreading process leads to an increase in the droplet’s width and a SPH method is shown in Fig. 7, where the SPH results are compared with
decrease in the droplet’s height. Soon, the droplet’s width spreads to its those obtained by FDM (Tomé et al. [6] and Oishi et al. [64]) and other
maximal value, as illustrated at t* = 2.35. Then, the droplet exhibits a SPH (Fang et al. [43]). Note that in Fig. 7, the droplet’s spread width is
particular retraction behavior during 2.35 < t* < 3.45. The retraction also introduced as a dimensionless width which is similar to t*. It is seen
behavior is in nature caused by the elasticity of the fluid. During this that the droplet’s spread width obtained by the present SPH method
time period, the droplet has an upward velocity, as observed at t* = 2.95 agrees with the literature results [6,43,64], which validates the SPH
and 3.45. With elapse of time, the elastic effect of the droplet is gradu­ method in simulating PTT viscoelastic free surface flows. Meanwhile,
ally weakened. The droplet spreads on the wall surface again, seeing t* there also exist some slight differences among these results. To be more
= 4.85. It should be noted that the shape of the droplet at t* = 4.85 is not specific, the maximum spreading width of the droplet obtained by the
the final shape of droplet since the surface tension is not considered in present SPH method is ~ 2.21, which is consistent with those of Tomé
this work. Thus, the droplet would continue to spread very slowly. et al. [6] and Oishi et al. [64] but lower than that of Fang et al. [43], i.e.,
Moreover, due to the high viscosity of droplet (η = 4Pa⋅s− 1 ), there ~ 2.27. At the stage of contraction, slight differences among these re­
would be no splash of some tiny droplets after the droplet impacts the sults are further observed, that is, the retraction behavior of the droplet
rigid plate. obtained by the present SPH method is close to that of Oishi et al. [64],
To validate the reliability of the present work, it would be desirable but slightly weaker than those of Tomé et al. [6] and Fang et al. [43].
to compare the present SPH results with the experiment. Unfortunately, The minimum retraction width of the droplet obtained by the present
so far, we have not found any experiments related to the impact of a PTT SPH method is ~1.80, while those of Oishi et al. [64], Fang et al. [43],
droplet with a rigid plate. However, it should be noted that for the and Tomé et al. [6] are ~ 1.83, ~1.75, and ~ 1.69, respectively.
spreading behavior of viscoelastic droplet after impacting the rigid In order to further validate the effectiveness of the proposed SPH
plate, several researchers (e.g., Tomé et al. [6], Fang et al. [43], Oishi method in simulating PTT viscoelastic free surface flows, we assess the
et al. [64]) have simulated it based on the Oldroyd-B model. On the convergence of the numerical algorithm by using several different par­
other hand, the Oldroyd-B model could be recovered by simply setting ticle sizes. Specifically, we take the PTT droplet of Fig. 6 (i.e., Re = 5, Wi
the PTT elongational parameter ε = 0 in the code. Therefore, in order to = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25) as the benchmark, and employ four different

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Table 1 parameters on the time evolution of the droplet’s spread width. Except
Calculation parameters for different models. the target parameter, the data adopted for different models are the same
Models Calculation parameters as those of Fig. 6 and are summarized in Table 1, which reads:
Influence of Re Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25 Re: 2, 5, 10
Influence of Wi Re = 5, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25 Wi: 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8 • Influence of Re
Influence of β Re = 5, Wi = 1, ε = 0.25 β: 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9
Influence of ε Re = 5, Wi = 1, β = 0.1 ε: 0.01, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5 To investigate the influence of the Reynolds number Re on the
droplet’s spreading behavior, we employ three different Re values, i.e.,
Re = 2, 5, 10. The droplet’s spread widths obtained by three different Re
initial particle spacings (i.e., Δx = 0.0004, 0.0002, 0.000125, and
values are presented in Fig. 9(a). It is observed that the maximum
0.0001) to simulate it. During the simulation process, all the other
spreading width of the droplet greatly increases with an increasing Re.
physical parameters remain unchanged. Fig. 8 shows the time evolutions
This is because: the larger Re is, the stronger the inertial force of the
of the droplet’s spread width obtained by four different Δx. As can be
droplet is, resulting in a fast spread of the droplet after impacting the
seen, there are no large differences between these four different SPH
rigid plate. Due to the strong inertial force, the retraction behavior of the
solutions, indicating that the SPH method proposed in this paper is
droplet becomes weak. The retraction behavior of Re = 2 is obviously
convergent for the simulations of PTT viscoelastic free surface flows.
stronger than that of Re = 10. The retraction behavior of the droplet is in
Meanwhile, in order to better quantify the convergence of the method,
nature caused by the elasticity of the droplet. However, the elastic force
we similarly employ Eq. (38) to calculate the l2-norm error by
of the droplet becomes relatively small with a large Re. Therefore, there
comparing the SPH results obtained on Δx = 0.0004, 0.002, and
is a weak retraction behavior of the droplet after impacting the rigid
0.000125 to that obtained on Δx = 0.0001, where the SPH solution of
plate.
Δx = 0.0001 is taken as the reference solution. The calculated l2-norm
errors for Δx = 0.0004, 0.002, and 0.000125 compared to Δx = 0.0001
• Influence of Wi
are 1.16%, 0.67% and 0.23%, respectively. Obviously, the l2-norm error
decreases with refining particle, indicating the good convergence of the
As for the influence of the Weissenberg number Wi on the flow
proposed SPH method.
process, we observe from Fig. 9(b) that increasing Wi from 0.5 to 8 also
Below, we investigate the influence of the PTT rheological

Fig. 9. Influence of different rheological parameters on the time change of the PTT droplet’s spread width d(t*)/d0: (a) Re; (b) Wi; (c) β; (d) ε.

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Fig. 10. Effect of Re on the droplet dynamics (Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25).

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Fig. 11. Schematic diagram of droplet bounce height.

leads to a large increase in the maximum spreading width of the droplet.

This is because: the shear thinning of the fluid would be enhanced with
an increasing Wi, which leads to a fast spread of the droplet. Moreover,
as the Wi value increases, the time required for the droplet to reach its
maximum spread width is longer. From Fig. 9(b), the time taken for Wi
= 0.5 to reach its maximum spread width is about 2.375, while those of Fig. 12. Variation of droplet bounce height with time under different Re
Wi = 1, 2, 4, and 8 are about 2.505, 2.765 and 2.955, respectively. numbers (Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25).

• Influence of β

The influence of the solvent viscosity ratio β on the droplet’s

spreading behavior is shown in Fig. 9(c), where five different β values, i.
e., β = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 are taken. It is seen that the larger β is,
the weaker the retraction behavior of the droplet becomes. In particular,
there is no retraction behavior for β = 0.9. This is because: when β in­
creases, the Newtonian solvent viscosity increases accordingly. Since the
total viscosity of the droplet does not change, the polymer viscosity
decreases, resulting in a small elastic force of the droplet. Under this
circumstance, the droplet exhibits a spreading behavior similar to that of
a Newtonian droplet.

• Influence of ε

The effect of the PTT elongational parameter ε on the spreading

width of the droplet is shown in Fig. 9(d). It is seen that ε does not affect Fig. 13. Convergent analysis of droplet bounce height (Re = 0.2, Wi = 1, β =
the maximum spread width of the droplet, but significantly affects the 0.1, ε =0.25).
retraction behavior of the droplet. The larger ε is, the weaker the
retraction behavior of the droplet becomes. For ε = 0.01, the minimum
In order to describe the droplet bouncing behavior more rationally,
retraction width of the droplet is ~ 1.725, which is obviously smaller
we introduce the droplet’s bounce height h(t*), which is defined as the
than those of ε = 0.1, 0.25, and 0.5 (~ 1.815, 1.925, and 2.035,
distance from the bottommost part of the droplet to the rigid plate
respectively). This is because: ε has a significant effect on the elonga­
surface (seeing Fig. 11). The time changes of droplet’s bounce height for
tional behavior of the droplet. The larger ε is, the larger the elongational
different Re numbers (i.e., Re = 2, 1, 0.5, and 0.2) are given in Fig. 12. It
viscosity of the droplet at the same shear rate is and the more pro­
is worth noting that similar to the spread width of the droplet, the
nounced the elongational effect of the droplet is. In this case, the per­
bounce height of the droplet is also introduced as a dimensionless
centage of the elastic force of the droplet decreases, leading to a weak
height. It can be seen that the smaller Re is, the more pronounced the
retraction behavior of the droplet.
droplet bouncing behavior is and the larger its bouncing height is. For
Re = 0.2, the maximum bounce height of the droplet is ~ 0.1574, while
4.2.2. Bouncing behavior
those of Re = 0.5 and 1 are ~ 0.1181 and 0.0621, respectively. Droplet
In what follows, we investigate the bouncing behavior of the PTT
bounce does not occur when Re is large enough, as the case of Re = 2.
viscoelastic droplet after impacting the rigid plate.
Since the droplet bouncing behavior is most significant for Re = 0.2,
To capture the bouncing behavior of the droplet, we intend to
we choose Re = 0.2 to investigate the influence of PTT rheological pa­
decrease the Reynolds number. Specifically, four different Reynolds
rameters on the bouncing behavior of the droplet. Meanwhile, in order
numbers, i.e., Re = 2, 1, 0.5, and 0.2, are employed by varying the
to validate the proposed SPH method in simulating the bouncing
viscosity of the droplet, while all the other parameters are set the same
behavior of the droplet, we take the case of Re = 0.2, Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε =
as those of Fig. 6 (i.e., Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25). Fig. 10 shows the
0.25 as the benchmark to analyze the convergence of the method.
corresponding SPH results of the droplet impacting the wall surface at
Similar to that of the spread, we perform four different simulations with
three different moments, where the velocity vector is specially visual­
the initial particle spacing of Δx = 0.0004, 0.0002, 0.000125, and
ized. It can be seen that the droplet with Re = 2 only exhibits the
0.0001, respectively, while all the other parameters remain unchanged.
retraction behavior similar to that of Fig. 6 and no phenomenon of
The time changes of the bounce height of the droplet for four different
bounce emerges. The droplet bouncing phenomenon gradually appears
initial particle spacing are shown in Fig. 13. It is seen that there are no
when Re decreases to 1, as illustrated at t* = 3.05. As the Re number
large differences between SPH solution of Δx =0.0002 and those of Δx
continues to decrease to 0.5 and 0.2, the droplet bouncing behavior
=0.00125, and 0.0001, indicating that SPH discretization of Δx
becomes more pronounced. To be more specific, droplets of Re = 0.5 and
=0.0002 is sufficient to obtain accurate numerical results for the
0.2 have exhibited the bouncing behavior at t* = 2.45. The bouncing
bouncing behavior of the droplet. Meanwhile, taking Δx = 0.0001 as the
behavior of the droplet with Re = 0.2 is stronger than that of Re = 0.5.
reference solution, we also calculate the l2-norm error for the bounce

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Fig. 14. Variation of droplet bounce height with time under different β values
(Re = 0.2, Wi = 1,ε = 0.25).
Fig. 15. Influence of Wi on the maximum bounce height of the droplet.
height of the droplet. The calculated l2-norm errors for Δx = 0.0004,
0.0002, and 0.000125 compared to Δx = 0.0001 are 0.71%, 0.18% and
0.04%, respectively. It is obvious that the l2-norm error decreases as the
particle spacing decreases, which further verifies the effectiveness of the
numerical method.
4.2.2.1. Influence of β. In the following, the influences of PTT rheo­
logical parameters on the bouncing behavior of the droplet are deeply
analyzed, where the case of Re = 0.2, Wi = 1, β = 0.1, ε = 0.25 is taken as
the base. We first investigate the influence of the solvent viscosity ratio β
on the bouncing behavior of the droplet. Especially, seven different
solvent viscosity ratios β = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 are used,
while all the other parameters are set the same as those of Fig. 10d.
Fig. 14 depicts the time changes of the droplet bounce height for seven
different β. It is seen that the bouncing behavior of the droplet is closely
related to β. The larger β is, the weaker the droplet bouncing behavior is.
For β = 0.3, no droplet bounce emerges. The smaller β is, the stronger the
bouncing behavior is and the higher the bounce height of the droplet is.
For β = 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05, the maximum bounce heights of the droplet
are ~ 0.0268, 0.1574 and 0.3464, respectively, while those of β = 0.03,
0.01, and 0 are ~ 0.4810, 0.7023 and 0.8302, respectively. Further­
more, for β = 0.03, 0.01, and 0, we clearly observe 2 to 3 droplet
bouncing behaviors, while those of β = 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 only exhibit
once. In fact, β represents the ratio of the Newtonian solvent viscosity to
the total viscosity. The smaller β is, the smaller the Newtonian solvent
viscosity is and the larger the polymer viscosity is. Under this circum­
stance, the stronger the elastic force formed by the droplet impacting the
wall surface is. Therefore, the smaller β is, the more obvious the droplet
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Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485
Fig. 16. Influence of Re on the maximum bounce height of the droplet.
bouncing behavior is and the higher the bounce height of the droplet is.
4.2.2.2. Influence of Wi, Re, and ε. To investigate the influence of Wi on
the bouncing behavior of the droplet, fourteen different Wi, i.e., Wi =
0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 are selected.
The other PTT parameters are taken as Re = 0.2, β = 0.1, and ε = 0.25.
Fig. 15 plots the maximum bounce height hmax/d0 of the droplet ob­
tained by these fourteen different runs. It is interestingly observed that
the maximum bounce height of the droplet first increases and then de­
creases with the increase of Wi. Specifically, the bounce height of the
droplet reaches its maximum (~ 0.319) at Wi ~ 0.2. Above or below this
value, the maximum bounce height of the droplet all decreases as the
cases of Wi = 0.3, 0.5, and 1 have the maximum bounce height of ~
0.306, 0.264, and 0.157, respectively, while those of Wi = 0.1, 0.05, and
0.05 have the maximum bounce heights of ~ 0.256, 0.142, and 0.005,
respectively. To further check this conclusion, we also take β = 0.05 and
0.01 to investigate. In the same way, we employ fourteen different Wi
values mentioned above to simulate, while the other parameters are kept
the same. The maximum bounce heights of the droplet obtained by these
twenty-eight different runs are presented in Fig. 15. Again, the cases of β
= 0.05 and 0.01 reach their maximum bounce height at Wi ~ 0.3 and ~
1, respectively. Above or below this certain Wi value, the maximum
bounce height of the droplet all decreases. Actually, this phenomenon
can be explained as follows: when Wi is below the certain Wi value, the
fluid is gradually approximated to a Newtonian fluid with a decreasing
Wi. In this situation, the elastic force of the droplet is very small, which
thus leads to a weak bouncing behavior of the droplet. When Wi is above
the certain Wi value, the elastic force of the droplet becomes large.
However, the larger Wi is, the longer the relaxation time of the droplet
is. Thus, even if the droplet has a strong elasticity, the time formed by
the elastic stress after impacting the wall surface is too long. In addition,
the large Wi leads to a fast spread of the droplet because of the
enhancement of the shear thinning. The spreading deformation of the
droplet consumes too much internal energy. Therefore, above the
certain Wi, the maximum bounce height of the droplet also decreases.
Fig. 16 further analyzes the effect of different Reynolds numbers (i.e.,
Re = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5) on the maximum bounce height of
the droplet, where three different β with the value of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1
are considered. It is seen that the larger Re is, the lower the maximum
bounce height of the droplet is. In particular, when Re ≥ 1, the droplet
no longer bounces. Actually, as explained before, the larger Re is, the
larger the inertia force of the droplet is. After impacting the solid wall
surface, the droplet’s inertial force is larger than its elastic force. Thus,
the droplet only exhibits spread, but no bounce. Moreover, it is also
concluded from Fig. 16 that the smaller β is, the higher the maximum
bouncing height of the droplet is.
The effect of the PTT elongational parameter ε on the maximal
X. Xu et al.
Fig. 17. Influence of ε on the maximum bounce height of the droplet.
bounce height of the droplet is plotted in Fig. 17, where eight different ε
values, i.e., ε = 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, are selected. Mean­
while, similar to that of Wi and Re, three different β with the value of β =
0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 are employed for the analysis of ε. It is observed that
the maximal bounce height of the droplet slightly decreases with an
increase of ε. Indeed, the larger ε is, the larger the elongational viscosity
of the droplet at the same shear rate is and the more pronounced the
elongational effect of the droplet is. In this situation, the percentage of
the elastic force of droplet relative to the total force decreases, leading to
a slightly weak bouncing behavior of the droplet.
Conclusions
In this paper, we have developed a SPH method for simulations of
transient viscoelastic fluid flows governed by the PTT constitutive
equation. To improve the computational accuracy of SPH, the mixed
symmetric correction algorithm of kernel gradient is implemented. To
remove the tensile instability, the artificial stress model is added into the
momentum equation. The SPH method is employed to simulate the
plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT fluid and the impact of a PTT droplet
impacting a rigid plate. The following conclusions are drawn from the
results:
(1) For the plane Poiseuille flow of a PTT fluid, good agreement
between SPH and FVM solutions is achieved and the error of the
present SPH in comparison with FVM is smaller than that of the
traditional SPH, indicating that the present SPH method is
effective and has higher computational accuracy than traditional
SPH for solving PTT viscoelastic flows.
(2) The PTT parameters have an important influence on the
spreading behavior of the droplet after impacting the rigid plate.
That is, the larger Re or Wi are, the faster the droplet spreads. The
larger β or ε are, the weaker the retraction behavior of the droplet
becomes.
(3) The PTT parameters have an important influence on the bouncing
behavior of the droplet. That is, the smaller Re, β, or ε are, the
higher the maximum bounce height of the droplet is. The
maximum bounce height first increases and then decreases with
an increasing Wi.
(4) The SPH method proposed in this paper is a powerful computa­
tion tool for simulating PTT viscoelastic fluid flows and is capable
of effectively describing their complex rheological properties and
free surface variation characteristics.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xiaoyang Xu: Methodology, Supervision, Conceptualization. Jie
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Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 158 (2024) 473–485
Cheng: Software, Writing – original draft, Conceptualization. Sai Peng:
Visualization, Software. Peng Yu: Investigation, Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Dr. Zhen Li of Xi’an University of Science
and Technology for assisting in the revision and participating in dis­
cussions and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. This work
is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant No. 12071367, 12172163), the Department of Science and
Technology of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2023B1212060001),
and Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (Grant
No. JSGG20220831101400002).
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