Perspectives of the Lattice Boltzmann Method for Industrial Applications

Abstract

This chapter discusses the perspectives of the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method for industrial applications, and presents some successful examples from the automobile industry, chemical engineering, and civil engineering. The LB method is based on the numerical evaluation of a Boltzmann type equation, treating the fluid from a statistical point of view. Recently, this new method proved to be highly efficient for high performance computing (HPC) simulations in several research areas like porous media flow, multi phase flow, or the simulation of reaction-diffusion processes. The LB method treats the fluid on a statistical level, simulating the movement and interaction of ensemble-averaged particle density distributions by solving a velocity discrete Boltzmann type equation. The LB method will become a major computational fluid dynamics (CFD) application in the future, which will help saving time and money for carrying out highly accurate numerical simulations.