Co-moving volumes and the Reynolds transport theorem for two-phase flows

We consider the local kinematics at fluid interfaces in sharp-interface two-phase flows with phase change and interfacial slip.

In this setting the governing velocity field is discontinuous at the phase boundary, with possible jumps of both normal and tangential components, and the associated kinematic initial value problems may fail to be uniquely solvable.

A physically consistent example exhibits this non-uniqueness and, in addition, rapid loss of boundary regularity: smooth initial control volumes can instantaneously develop edges, while their phasewise parts may form cusps.

Motivated by these phenomena, we use concepts from differential inclusions to define co-moving volumes as attainable sets.

For such attainable-set co-moving volumes in three-dimensional two-phase flows, we prove the Reynolds transport theorem first in boundary-integral form and then in divergence form.

A key ingredient is a boundary-integral form of the single-phase Reynolds transport theorem for families of compact regular closed sets whose space-time tubes are Lipschitz domains.

We also provide a short proof of this single-phase result by applying the divergence theorem in space-time; this proof does not require the motion to be generated by an ambient velocity field.