Flow force calculation in Lattice Boltzmann Method

Abstract

We revisit force evaluation methodologies on rigid solid particles suspended in a viscous fluid and simulated via lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). We point out the non-commutativity of streaming and collision operators in the force evaluation procedure and provide a theoretical explanation for this observation. Based on this analysis, we propose a discrete force calculation scheme with enhanced accuracy. The proposed scheme is essentially a lattice version of the Reynolds Transport Theorem (RTT) in the context of the lattice Boltzmann formulation. Besides maintaining satisfactory levels of reliability and accuracy, the method also handles force evaluation on complex geometries in a simple and transparent way. We run simulations for NACA0012 airfoil for a range of Reynolds numbers ranging from 100 to 0.5x10^6 and show that the current approach significantly reduces the grid size requirement for accurate force evaluation.