Evaluation of the General Purpose Boundary Condition for theThermal Lattice Boltzmann Method

The lattice Boltzmann method is considered as an alternative approach to the well-known finite difference, finite element, and finite volume techniques for solving the flow fields. In this work, a general purpose boundary condition for a thermal lattice Boltzmann method based on the BGK model has been evaluated to simulate the natural convection flow in a square cavity. The model uses the double populations approach to simulate hydrodynamic and thermal fields. The problem is solved for different Rayleigh numbers and the results are in good agreement with those from other common methods. The results show the capabilities of the presented thermal LBM for predicting fluid flow with heat transfer.

Keywords:

thermal lattice Boltzmann , double distribution functions , boundary conditions , natural convection