Parallelised Hoshen–Kopelman algorithm for lattice-Boltzmann simulations

Abstract

We discuss two topics that we have encountered in our lattice-Boltzmann simulations of complex fluids: the sizes of droplets in particle-stabilised emulsions and deformable particles in fluid flow. The common factor in these seemingly disparate subjects is that both represent an opportunity for a novel application of the Hoshen–Kopelman algorithm. This algorithm is based on detecting connected clusters on a lattice and labelling the involved lattice sites such that all sites that are connected share the same label. The assumption of the presence of a lattice makes it a convenient algorithm to use in combination with lattice-Boltzmann simulations. In order to apply this algorithm on the fly during massively parallel simulations, it needs to be parallelised as well. We present our parallel implementation, which is tailored to a common parallelisation scheme for the lattice-Boltzmann method, and compare it to previous work. We then briefly discuss some examples of results obtained using this procedure.