Shaping the equation of state to improve numerical accuracy and stability of the pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann method

Recently it was discovered that altering the shape of the meta stable and unstable branches of an equation of state (EOS) can greatly improve the numerical accuracy of liquid and gas densities in the pseudopotential method. Inspired by this approach we develop an improved approach that is benchmarked for both equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations. We show here that the original approach reduces the method stability in non-equilibrium situations. Here we propose a new procedure to replace the metastable and unstable regions of these EOS by alternative functions. Our approach does not affects the coexistence densities or the speed of sound of the liquid phase while maintaining continuity of the sound speed in the pressure-density curve. Using this approach we were able to reduce the relative error of the planar interface vapor density compared to the thermodynamic consistent value by increasing the vapor phase sound speed. To allow for the benchmarking of dynamic results we also developed a finite difference method (FD) that solves the same macroscopic conservation equation as the pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). With this FD scheme we are able to perform mesh refinement and obtain reference solutions for the dynamic tests. We observed excellent agreement between the FD solutions and our proposed scheme. We also performed a detailed study of the stability of the methods using simulations of a droplet impacting on a liquid film for reduced temperatures down to 0.35 with Reynolds number of 300. Our approach remains stable for a density ratio up to $3.38\cdot10^{4}$.