The analytical expression for the mass flux in the wet/dry areas method (Q1954383)

Summary: Accurate prediction of the distribution of shear stress is essential for the numerical investigation of the interaction between the wind and water waves on ocean surface since the shear stress plays a key role in this type of interfacial flows. The numerical velocity distribution provided by the computational fluid dynamics should have high accuracy as the shear stress is computed by the derivative of the numerically predicted velocity. The recently developed wet/dry areas method based on the conservative integral form of the Navier-Stokes equations mathematically reveals that the convection terms in the Navier-Stokes equations should be calculated by the areas exposed to the water and air. In this paper, an analytical expression for the mass flux in the wet/dry areas method is derived, the discussion is focused on why this analytical expression should be used for more accurate numerical simulation of interfacial (free surface) flows.