Isotropy and spurious currents in pseudo-potential multiphase lattice Boltzmann models

Abstract

The spurious currents observed in multiphase flow simulations with pseudo-potential lattice Boltzmann (LB) models are usually understood to be the result of the lack of isotropy of the model-generated interaction force between phases. Remedies have been proposed to utilize larger stencils to compute the interaction force with higher orders of isotropy. In this document, we point out the incompleteness in the current understanding and propose a new consistent implementation to more effectively suppress the spurious currents. We also demonstrate theoretically that certain low-level spurious currents cannot be eliminated by increasing isotropy if the local hydrostatic balance inside the diffuse interface is not established in the LB models.