Surface-tension calibration for N-phase mixtures

Abstract

Diffuse-interface (phase-field) models are a widely used framework for interfacial dynamics in complex fluids, in which sharp interfaces are replaced by smooth transition layers and interfacial forces follow from a free-energy functional. In these models, surface tensions and diffuse thicknesses are not prescribed directly but are encoded implicitly by the bulk multiwell potential and the gradient-energy term through one-dimensional equilibrium profiles. While this link is classical in the binary Cahn--Hilliard setting, calibrating multiphase models is substantially more delicate because multiple pairwise surface tensions must be matched simultaneously and the relevant equilibrium paths are constrained by the Gibbs simplex. The practical problem is therefore: given a chosen bulk potential and a set of target pairwise surface tensions, determine gradient-energy coefficients that reproduce these targets in the full multiphase model. Here we present a thermodynamically consistent calibration procedure for N-phase diffuse-interface free energies of Cahn--Hilliard type. The method determines a symmetric capillary matrix that matches prescribed pairwise surface tensions through the model's equilibrium profiles. We further introduce a rescaling strategy that adjusts diffuse interface widths to mesh-resolvable values while preserving the calibrated surface tensions. The resulting calibrated free-energy closure can be incorporated directly into N-phase mixture simulations, and we demonstrate this by applying it to N-phase Navier--Stokes--Cahn--Hilliard flows.