Lattice Boltzmann method for polymer kinetic theory

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to extend the applicability of the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) to the field of polymer kinetic theory or more generally suspensions that could be described in the Fokker–Planck formalism. This method has been, in a first time, used for gas kinetic theory, where the resolution space corresponds to the physical space coordinate. In a second time is has been generalized to be applied to fluid flow involving different behaviours: turbulence, porous media, multiphase flow, etc. However this powerful, parallel, and efficient algorithm has not been applied for solving Fokker–Planck equations widely used to describe suspension kinetic theory. In this scale, molecular models involve a high computational costs because of the multidimensionality of the fully coupled micro–macro complex flow. The originality of this work consists to apply the lattice Boltzmann technique for solving Fokker–Planck equation based on a discretization of the configuration space where the resolution coordinates correspond to the microscopic configuration space (and not the physical coordinates). The result of this work emphasizes the optimality of the used technique that, in addition to its parallel ability, gathers the simplicity of the stochastic simulation and the robustness of the traditional fixed mesh support (such as the finite element method). Accuracy and convergence of the LBM will be compared to the stochastic and the finite element techniques for homogeneous shear flow.