A Level-Set Mass-Conservative Mesh Adaptation Technique for In-Flight Ice Accretion Multi-Step Simulations

This paper presents an innovative approach to model evolving boundaries problems due to the accumulation or erosion of material over a surface, offering a robust alternative to standard algebraic methods. The strategy is based on the level-set method and it allows the local conservation of the prescribed mass material accounting for the curvature of the body. No partial differential equations are solved for the level-set function, but simple geometric quantities are used to provide an implicit discretization of the new updated boundary. The method is applied to body-fitted unstructured grids, that allow a good representation of arbitrarily complex geometries. Two multi-step in-flight ice accretion simulations over a NACA0012 are presented to show the feasibility and adaptability of the method, that can be also extended to three-dimensional applications.