Table of Contents
Lattice Boltzmann fluid gallery
The images and animations on this page illustrate typical areas of application for the lattice Boltzmann method. All simulations were implemented with the OpenLB library and executed on a parallel machine. Straightforward physical models were used in each example, with the intent to illustrate basic concepts of lattice Boltzmann. To appreciate the elegance of the LB models, you may want to visit the LBMethod.org Matlab scripts page. The scripts presented there would certainly lack the computational efficiency to produce most the images and animations of the gallery below. The implemented models are however exactly identical with those of the OpenLB library.
Solutions to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (plain fluids)
 | 2D flow past a cylinder. A Karman vortex street is observed in the wake of a cylindrical obstacle placed in a 2D channel. |
 | 2D flow with external spinning force. This 2D flow is driven by an array of 8×8 counter-rotating spinning cells, and breaks into a turbulent regime. |
 | 2D dipole-wall collision. Two counter-rotating 2D vortexes are self-propelled toward a no-slip wall, with which they interact and generate secondary vortex pairs. |
 | 3D backward facing step. Flow in a rectangular 3D channel, past a backward facing step. |
Complex fluids
 | 2D Rayleigh-Taylor instability. A Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurs as a heavy and a light fluid try to find an equilibrium state under the influence of gravity. |
 | 3D Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The same problem is reproduced with a 3D fluid. |
 | 2D Rayleigh-Benard convection. Convection rolls are formed, as a fluid is placed between a hot and a cold plate. |
 | 3D Rayleigh-Benard convection. The same problem is reproduced with a 3D fluid. |
 | 2D percolation through a porous media. Simulation of buoyancy driven non wetting bubbles percolating in a porous media, modeled with the multi-component Shan/Chen model. The porous media is filled with a dense and wetting fluid. |