Growth Kinetics in Multicomponent Fluids
Abstract
The hydrodynamic effects on the late stage kinetics in spinodal decomposition of multicomponent fluids are examined using a lattice Boltzmann scheme with stochastic fluctuations in the fluid and at the interface. In two dimensions, the three and four component immiscible fluid mixture (with a
1024
2
lattice) behaves like an off-critical binary fluid with an estimated domain growth of
t
0.4±.03
rather than
t
1/3
as previously predicted, showing the significant influence of hydrodynamics. In three dimensions (with a
256
3
lattice), we estimate the growth as
t
0.96±0.05
for both critical and off-critical quenching, in agreement with phenomenological theory.