Abstract

A boiling front of water moving through porous medium is simulated using a numerical finite volume method (FVM) which is then compared to an analytical solution. The FVM is constructed on top of the OpenFOAM framework, which is a highly customizable set of C++ libraries and tools for the solution of problems in continuum mechanics. The solution is stabilized using Fréchet derivatives which enables the use of appropriately sized time steps. The physical properties of the water are determined from the IAPWS-IF97 thermodynamic formulation. The results show that the numerical model is able to simulate the overall behavior of the boiling front sufficiently well. This increases the confidence in the numerical solutions outside the limits of the analytical solution.