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Thermal lattice Boltzmann ux solver and its application for simulation

of incompressible thermal ows


Y. Wang, C. Shu

, C.J. Teo
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260, Singapore
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 July 2013
Received in revised form 8 January 2014
Accepted 6 February 2014
Available online 18 February 2014
Keywords:
ChapmanEnskog analysis
Thermal lattice Boltzmann ux solver
Lattice Boltzmann method
Finite volume method
Thermal ow problems
a b s t r a c t
A thermal lattice Boltzmann ux solver (TLBFS) is developed in this work for simulation of incompress-
ible thermal ows. In TLBFS, the thermal lattice Boltzmann method (TLBM) is only applied to reconstruct
the local solution of TLBM for evaluation of uxes at the cell interface. Meanwhile, the macroscopic ow
variables at cell centers are obtained by using the nite volume method to solve conservative differential
equations recovered from ChapmanEnskog analysis of thermal lattice Boltzmann equation. The physical
boundary conditions in TLBFS can be directly implemented using the same way as in conventional
NavierStokes (NS) solvers. The present solver eliminates the constraints associated with conventional
lattice Boltzmann method such as limitation to uniform Cartesian mesh, tie-up between the time step
and the mesh spacing, as well as implementation of boundary conditions for distribution functions. TLBFS
is validated through numerical examples of natural convection in enclosures, including a square cavity
and a cylindrical annulus, and mixed convection from a heated cylinder. Through numerical validation,
it is shown that TLBFS can be effectively and exibly applied to solve thermal ow problems with curved
boundaries.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In the last two decades, remarkable achievements have been at-
tained by the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) [1,2] in simulating a
variety of incompressible uid ows, such as multiphase ows
[3,4], micro-ows [5,6] and turbulent ows [7]. The success of
LBM may be due to its special features which make it a very simple
and efcient solver. Based on the kinetic theory, LBM solves the
algebraic lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) on the uniform grid.
Two simple processes are involved in LBM. They are linear stream-
ing and collision processes. The macroscopic ow properties can be
simply obtained from the moments of particle distribution func-
tions. Furthermore, LBM has a parallel feature in nature which
makes it easy to be parallelized for massive computations.
Due to its distinct features, LBM has also been extended for its
applications to thermal ows [816], and in this development, sev-
eral thermal lattice Boltzmann (LB) models [1724] have been pro-
posed. The earliest thermal LB model, also known as multi-speed
model, was perhaps proposed by Mcnamara and Alder [17]. This
model uses the density distribution function with more lattice
speeds for both the ow and temperature elds. Unfortunately, it
was found [18] that this model suffers from numerical instability
and can only be applied for thermal ows with a x Prandlt num-
ber. Later, Shan [19] proposed a passive-scalar thermal LB model
by introducing an additional distribution function for temperature.
In this model, the drawbacks of the multi-speed models such as
numerical instability can be effectively removed. To incorporate
compression work and viscous heat dissipation into TLBM, He
et al. [20] proposed a thermal energy model derived from the
Boltzmann equation. The proposed thermal energy model was suc-
cessfully validated by simulating Couette ows and RayleighBe-
nard convections. However, the model involves many
complicated terms, which may spoil the simplicity of LBM. To pro-
vide a simpler thermal LB model, Peng et al. [22] proposed a sim-
plied thermal energy model for incompressible thermal ows
without considering the compressive effect and heat dissipation.
Numerical simulations showed that the simplied thermal LB
model can achieve the same order of accuracy as the model of
He et al. [20]. Thereafter, Guo et al. [23] argued that the model of
He et al. [20] involves some complicated gradient terms, which
may introduce additional errors and affect numerical stability.
They further developed a total energy LB model without spatial
gradient terms and successfully applied it to simulate natural con-
vection in a cavity. Li et al. [24] analyzed the effects of the compli-
cated gradient terms in the model of He et al. [20] and proposed an
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compuid.2014.02.006
0045-7930/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +65 6516 6476; fax: +65 6779 1459.
E-mail address: mpeshuc@nus.edu.sg (C. Shu).
Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computers & Fluids
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ compui d
improved thermal LB model for thermal ows without compres-
sion work and viscous heat dissipation.
It is noteworthy that most of the previously reviewed thermal
LB models share the same distinctive advantages as LBM. However,
since there are two sides to a coin, both LBM and TLBM also suffer
from some drawbacks. First and foremost, due to regularity of lat-
tice velocity models, the applications of LBM are usually restricted
to regular grids. To apply LBM for ow problems involving irregu-
lar geometry, some additional effort is required. One approach is to
directly solve LBE in differential form by using the nite volume
method, and the resultant scheme is usually termed as nite vol-
ume-lattice Boltzmann method (FV-LBM) [2527]. In FV-LBM, the
cell-vortex scheme is applied to update the density distribution
function (DDF) and the uxes at the cell interface are obtained
through interpolation of DDFs. Another method is to introduce
interpolation techniques into LBM to update distribution functions
at mesh points [28,29]. When standard LBM is applied on a non-
uniform grid, the streaming process does not ensure that the
streaming particle reaches the objective mesh point. In other
words, the distribution functions at the mesh points cannot be di-
rectly obtained from the streaming process. To obtain the distribu-
tion functions at the mesh points, one has to performinterpolation.
Numerical experiments showed that these interpolation ap-
proaches [28,29] are capable of simulating both steady and unstea-
dy ows on irregular domains. However, complexity and
additional effort of computation are introduced as a consequence.
The second major drawback of LBM is the tie-up of time step with
mesh spacing. This drawback makes adaptive and multi-block
computation of LBE [30,31] be extremely difcult and complicated
as interpolation in both space and time is needed. The third draw-
back of LBM lies in implementation of physical boundary condi-
tions. In LBM, the physical boundary condition must be
converted into the boundary condition for distribution functions,
which may introduce additional complexity, especially when more
lattice directions are involved. In addition, LBM cannot be applied
to simulate inviscid ows due to numerical instability. To over-
come the above mentioned drawbacks, one may require a more
efcient solver. This serves as the motivation for the present work.
The solid foundation of LBM nds its roots in gas kinetic theory.
Through multi-scale ChapmanEnskog expansion analysis, Navier
Stokes (NS) equations can be recovered from the discrete LBE. To
be specic, the convective and viscous terms in NS equations can
be expressed by density distribution functions. LBM applies these
relations globally and implicitly which may result in the above
drawbacks. On the other hand, it should be indicated that the
ChapmanEnskog expansion-based relationships are valid at any
location of the ow domain. They can be applied locally. This idea
has been successfully applied by Xu and his co-workers [3234] to
construct a gas-kinetic BGK scheme, which can effectively simulate
compressible ows with high Mach numbers. Inspired by the work
of Xu [34], a thermal lattice Boltzmann ux solver (TLBFS) for ther-
mal ow problems is presented in this work. TLBFS applies the -
nite volume method to solve the governing equations derived from
multi-scale ChapmanEnskog analysis. The uxes at the cell inter-
face are evaluated by local reconstruction of the thermal LBM solu-
tion. During reconstruction, the relationships obtained by the
ChapmanEnskog expansion analysis to TLBM are applied. The
physical boundary conditions of TLBFS are directly implemented
to calculate the uxes at the boundary. TLBFS overcomes the pre-
viously mentioned drawbacks of LBM and can be exibly applied
on non-uniform grids with curved boundary. It should be indicated
that the present TLBFS is different from the recent works of FV-
LBM [3539], in which the nite volume method (FVM) is applied
to solve Euler equation and the inviscid ux is evaluated by apply-
ing one-dimensional lattice Boltzmann model to solve the local
Riemann problem along the normal direction to the interface.
In Section 2, the traditional thermal lattice Boltzmann method
is introduced and the ChapmanEnskog analysis is presented.
The methodology and implementation of TLBFS are then shown
in Section 3. Section 4 validates the proposed solver by numerical
examples. Conclusions are given in Section 5.
2. Thermal lattice Boltzmann method
2.1. Thermal lattice Boltzmann model
The simplied thermal lattice Boltzmann model with BGK
approximation [22] can be written as
f
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
f
a
r; t
f
eq
a
r; t f
a
r; t
s
v
; a 0; 1; . . . ; N
1
g
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
g
a
r; t
g
eq
a
r; t g
a
r; t
s
c
; a 0; 1; . . . ; M
2
where f
a
is the density distribution function along the a direction
and f
eq
a
is its corresponding equilibrium state; g
a
is the internal en-
ergy distribution function along the a direction and g
eq
a
is its corre-
sponding equilibrium state, s
v
and s
c
, which are related to the
dynamic viscosity and the thermal diffusivity, are the single relax-
ation parameters; d
t
is the streaming time step; M and N are the to-
tal number of discrete particles used, respectively, for f
a
and g
a
. In
this work, we use the same lattice velocity model for f
a
and g
a
. Thus,
M equals to N. The macroscopic properties of the density q, velocity
u and internal energy e are computed by the conservation laws of
mass, momentum and energy in the following forms
q

N
a0
f
a
; qu

N
a0
f
a
e
a
; qe

M
a0
g
a
3
Here, e = DRT/2, D is the dimension, R is the gas constant and T rep-
resents the temperature.
The commonly-used 9-bit lattice velocity model (D2Q9) for
two-dimensional (2D) cases is applied in this work, which is given
by
e
a

0 a 0
cosa 1p=2; sina 1p=2c a 1; 2; 3; 4

2
p
cosa 5p=2 p=4; sina 5p=2 p=4c a 5; 6; 7; 8
_

_
4
Here c = d
x
/d
t
, where d
x
is the lattice constant. The equilibrium dis-
tribution functions of f
eq
a
and g
eq
a
for the density and energy distribu-
tion functions are given by [19]
f
eq
a
r; t qw
a
1
e
a
u
c
2
s

e
a
u
2
c
s
juj
2
2c
4
s
_ _
5
g
eq
a
r; t

2q
3
juj
2
c
2
; a 0
qe
9
3
2

3
2

eau
c
2

9
2

eau
2
c
4

3
2

juj
2
c
2
_ _
; a 1; 2; 3; 4
qe
36
3 6
eau
c
2

9
2

eau
2
c
4

3
2

juj
2
c
2
_ _
; a 5; 6; 7; 8
_

_
6
Here, for the D2Q9 model given by Eq. (4), the coefcients w
a
and
the sound speed c
s
are given as w
0
= 4/9, w
1
= w
2
= w
3
= w
4
= 1/9
and w
5
= w
6
= w
7
= w
8
= 1/36, c
s
c=

3
p
.
2.2. ChapmanEnskog expansion analysis
The ChapmanEnskog expansion analysis shows that the evolu-
tion equations of LBM are capable of recovering the mass, momen-
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 99
tum and energy equations for incompressible ows [1,2], which
provides a solid foundation for LBM. By performing a Taylor-series
expansion to Eqs. (1) and (2), the resultant equations can be writ-
ten as
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
f
a

d
t
2
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
2
f
a

1
sd
t
f
a
f
eq
a
Od
2
t
0
7
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
g
a

d
t
2
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
2
g
a

1
sd
t
g
a
g
eq
a
Od
2
t
0
8
By introducing the multi-scale expansion, the density and inter-
nal energy distribution functions of f
a
and g
a
, the temporal deriva-
tive and the spatial derivative can be expanded, respectively, as
f
a
f
0
a
ef
1
a
e
2
f
2
a
9a
g
a
g
0
a
eg
1
a
e
2
g
2
a
9b
@
@t
e
@
@t
0
e
2
@
@t
1
9c
r
r
er
r1
9d
where e is a small perturbation parameter proportional to the
Knudsen number.
Substituting Eq. (9) into Eqs. (7) and (8) and applying conserva-
tion laws for mass, momentum and energy, the following equa-
tions can be obtained
@q
@t
r

N
a0
e
a
f
eq
a
_ _
0 10
@qu
@t
r P 0 11
@qe
@t
r Q 0 12
where Pand Q are the momentumux tensor and thermal ux vec-
tor, respectively, which are dened by
P
bc

N
a0
e
a

b
e
a

c
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
m
_ _
ef
1
a
_ _
13
Q

N
a0
e
a
g
eq
a
1
1
2s
c
_ _
eg
1
a

_ _
14
In the above equations, the non-equilibrium terms of ef
1
a
and eg
1
a
satisfy the following relationships [1,22]:
f
neq
a
f
a
f
eq
a
ef
1
a
s
m
d
t
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
f
eq
a
15
g
neq
a
g
a
g
eq
a
eg
1
a
s
c
d
t
@
@t
e
a
r
_ _
g
eq
a
16
Using relationships (3)(6) and (13)(16), Eqs. (10)(12) can re-
cover the following differential equations, which are identical to
the macroscopic governing equations for mass, momentum and
energy (without consideration of compression work and viscous
heat dissipation) of incompressible thermal ows [1,22],
@q
@t
r qu 0 17
@qu
@t
r quu rq mr rqu rqu
T
18
@
@t
qe r que vr
2
qe 19
where m is the kinematic viscosity and v is the thermal diffusivity.
When D2Q9 lattice velocity model is used, s
m
and s
c
can be deter-
mined by
m c
2
s
s
t

1
2
_ _
d
t
20
v
2
3
s
c

1
2
_ _
c
2
d
t
21
From the above process, it is clear that Eqs. (10)(12) are equivalent
to Eqs. (17)(19). This means that the macroscopic ow variables
and uxes can be computed by lattice summations of equilibrium
and non-equilibrium distribution functions. Usually, Eqs. (10)
(12) are applied to the whole ow domain for conventional TLBM.
As shown in the following section, they can also be applied locally
at the cell interface to evaluate uxes.
3. Thermal lattice Boltzmann ux solver (TLBFS)
In this section, TLBFS is presented for simulation of thermal
ow problems by solving Eqs. (10)(12) with relationships given
by Eqs. (13)(16). The governing Eqs. (10)(12) for the ow and
temperature elds can be rewritten in a vector form:
@W
@t

@E
@x

@F
@y
0 22
where
W
W
1
W
2
W
3
W
4
_

_
_

q
qu
qv
qe
_

_
_

_
; E
P
x
P
xx
P
yx
Q
x
_

_
_

_
; F
P
y
P
xy
P
yy
Q
y
_

_
_

_
23a
P
x

N
a0
e
ax
f
eq
a
23b
P
y

N
a0
e
ay
f
eq
a
23c
P
xx

N
a0
e
ax
e
ax
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
t
_ _
f
neq
a
_ _
23d
P
xy

N
a0
e
ax
e
ay
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
t
_ _
f
neq
a
_ _
23e
P
yx

N
a0
e
ay
e
ax
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
t
_ _
f
neq
a
_ _
23f
P
yy

N
a0
e
ay
e
ay
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
t
_ _
f
neq
a
_ _
23g
Q
x

N
a0
e
ax
g
eq
a
1
1
2s
c
_ _
g
neq
a
_ _
23h
Q
y

N
a0
e
ay
g
eq
a
1
1
2s
c
_ _
g
neq
a
_ _
23i
100 Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
In Eq. (22), e
ax
and e
ay
are the x and y components of the lattice
velocity given by the lattice velocity model, respectively. s
m
is calcu-
lated from Eq. (20) while s
c
is determined using Eq. (21).
When a cell-centered nite volume method is adopted to solve
Eq. (22), the ow properties q, qu and T at the cell center can be
obtained by marching in time. The uxes at the cell interface can
be evaluated by local reconstruction of TLBM solution. Integrating
Eq. (22) over a control volume X
i
, we have
dW
i
dt

1
DV
i

k
R
k
DS
k
; R
k
n
x
E n
y
F
k
24
where DV
i
is the volume of X
i
, and DS
k
is the area of the kth control
surface enclosing X
i
, n
x
and n
y
are the x and y components of the
unit outward normal vector on the kth control surface.
The detailed expression for the ux R
k
at a cell interface de-
pends on the lattice velocity model. As mentioned previously, the
D2Q9 lattice velocity model shown in Fig. 1 is used in this paper.
If we dene the distribution functions f

a
and g

a
, respectively, as:
f

a
f
eq
a
1
1
2s
t
_ _
f
neq
a
25
g

a
g
eq
a
1
1
2s
c
_ _
g
neq
a
26
then the ux R
k
can be written in detail as follows:
The key issue in the evaluation of the ux R
k
is to perform an accu-
rate evaluation of f
eq
a
, f

a
and g

a
at the cell interface. Next, we will
show the details of their evaluation.
3.1. Evaluation of f
eq
a
and f

a
at a cell interface by LBFS
Consider aninterface betweentwo adjacent control cells shownin
Fig. 2. f
eq
a
, f

a
should be evaluated at the middle point of the interface.
As shown in Eq. (25), both equilibriumdensity distribution functions
f
eq
a
and non-equilibrium density distribution functions f
neq
a
are in-
cluded in f

a
. The evaluation of f
eq
a
and f
neq
a
is illustrated below.
f
neq
a
can be approximated by the difference of equilibriumdistri-
bution functions at the cell interface and its surrounding points.
Discretizing Eq. (15) using a Taylor-series expansion, we can obtain
f
neq
a
to the second order of accuracy in d
t
as:
f
neq
a
r; t s
m
f
eq
a
r; t f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
28
As shown in Eq. (28), f
neq
a
only involves the equilibrium distribution
functions f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
and f
eq
a
r; t.
For f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
at the surrounding points of the interface,
following the conventional LBM, it can be computed from the uid
density q and ow velocity u at the position (r e
a
d
t
) according to
Eq. (5). As shown in Fig. 2, if r
i
, r
i+1
and r are dened as the physical
positions for the two cell centers and their interface, respectively, q
and u at the location r e
a
d
t
can be calculated by interpolation
with given ow properties at the cell centers. One possible interpo-
lation formulation can be given as
Similarly, f
eq
a
r; t can be computed from q(r, t) and u(r, t) by
applying Eq. (5). q(r, t) and u(r, t) are to be determined from mass
and momentum conservation laws:
qr; t

N
a0
f
a
r; t 31a
qr; tur; t

N
a0
f
a
r; te
a
31b
Streaming one local time step d
t
according to the LBM evolution
equation (1), we can obtain:
f
a
r; t f
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

f
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

s
m
;
a 0; 1; . . . ; N 32
Here f
a
(r e
a
d
t
, t d
t
) is the initial distribution function in the
reconstruction process of local LBE solver. In general, f
a
(r e
a
d
t
,
t d
t
) consists of two parts: equilibrium part and non-equilibrium
part. That is, f
a
(r e
a
d
t
, t d
t
) can be written as
f
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
f
neq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

33
Substituting Eq. (28) and Eq. (33) into Eq. (32) and simplifying the
resultant equation, f
a
(r, t) can be given in the following form:
f
a
r; t f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
1
1
s
m
_ _
f
neq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
1
1
s
m
_ _
s
m

f
eq
a
r; t f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

f
eq
a
r; t s
m
f
eq
a
r; t f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
34
Summation of Eq. (34) over a and applying the conservation laws of
Eq. (31), the conservative properties can be evaluated by the follow-
ing equations:
R
k

n
x
f
eq
1
f
eq
3
f
eq
5
f
eq
6
f
eq
7
f
eq
8
n
y
f
eq
2
f
eq
4
f
eq
5
f
eq
6
f
eq
7
f
eq
8
_ _
n
x
f

1
f

3
f

5
f

6
f

7
f

8
n
y
f

5
f

6
f

7
f

n
x
f

5
f

6
f

7
f

8
n
y
f

2
f

4
f

5
f

6
f

7
f

n
x
g

1
g

3
g

5
g

6
g

7
g

8
n
y
g

2
g

4
g

5
g

6
g

7
g

_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
k
27
qr e
a
d
t
; t d
t

qr
i
r e
a
d
t
r
i
rqr
i
; when r e
a
d
t
is in X
i
qr
i1
r e
a
d
t
r
i1
rqr
i1
; when r e
a
d
t
is in X
i1
_
29
ur e
a
d
t
; t d
t

ur
i
r e
a
d
t
r
i
rur
i
; when r e
a
d
t
is in X
i
ur
i1
r e
a
d
t
r
i1
rur
i1
; when r e
a
d
t
is in X
i1
_
30
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 101
qr; t

N
a0
f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
35a
qr; tur; t

N
a0
f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
e
a
35b
where f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
has already been calculated previously.
Once f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
and f
eq
a
r; t are obtained, f
neq
a
can be
approximated using Eq. (28) and thus f

a
can be easily computed
from Eq. (25).
3.2. Evaluation of g

a
at a cell interface by TLBFS
g

a
can be evaluated in a similar procedure to f

a
. As shown in Eq.
(26), g

a
includes both equilibrium internal energy distribution
function g
eq
a
and non-equilibriuminternal energy distribution func-
tion g
neq
a
. A delicate procedure to evaluate g
eq
a
and g
neq
a
is presented
as follows.
Consider g
neq
a
. Discretizing Eq. (16) with Taylor-series expansion
yields an expression for g
neq
a
:
g
neq
a
r; t g
neq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t

s
c
g
eq
a
r; t g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
36
Similar to f
eq
a
, the equilibrium internal energy distribution functions
g
eq
a
r; t and g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
are calculated from the macroscopic
uid density q, ow velocity u and temperature T at the corre-
sponding positions and time according to Eq. (6).
g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
is considered rst. As indicated in the previ-
ous sub-section, q and u at the location r e
a
d
t
can be calculated
by using interpolation form (31). The temperature T can also be
computed using the same interpolation form. After q, u and T are
obtained via interpolation, g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
can be calculated
by using Eq. (6).
Next, consider g
eq
a
r; t. g
eq
a
r; t can be computed from q(r, t),
u(r, t) and T(r, t) according to Eq. (6). Note that q(r, t), u(r, t) have
already been obtained using Eq. (35). T(r, t) is to be determined
using the energy conservation law:
qr; t er; t

N
a0
g
a
r; t 37
where e(r, t) = D R T(r, t)/2. Starting form Eq. (2) and following the
same procedure as for f
a
(r, t), the formulation for g
a
(r, t) can be ob-
tained as follows
g
a
r; t g
eq
a
r; t s
c
g
eq
a
r; t g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
38
Summation of Eq. (38) over a and applying the energy conservation
equation of (37), the following equation for the internal energy can
be obtained:
qr; t er; t

N
a0
g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
39
Once e(r, t) is computed, T(r, t) can be evaluated. g
eq
a
r; t can be cal-
culated using Eq. (6). Subsequently, g

a
can be easily computed from
Eq. (26).
As shown in Eqs. (35) and (39), only equilibrium distribution
functions at the surrounding points of a cell interface are involved.
With TLBM, they stream to the cell interface within a short time
interval d
t
for the local reconstruction to be performed. This pro-
cess can be performed independently on each interface which
makes the present TLBFS more exible to apply on non-uniform
grids. Furthermore, as only the equilibrium terms are involved,
there is no need to store the distribution function at each macro-
scopic time step during the marching process in time. This feature
enables TLBFS to apply efcient time marching schemes such as
four stage RungeKutta method to solve Eq. (24). After local recon-
struction of TLBM solutions at the cell interface, f
eq
a
, f

a
and g

a
can
be easily computed. Then the ux R
k
at any interface, including
both inviscid and viscous parts, can be effectively evaluated.
It should be highlighted that, to evaluate the ux R
k
at the
interface, f
eq
a
, f

a
and g

a
at each time step are reconstructed by the
standard TLBM without external forcing term. The effect of exter-
nal forcing term F
E
can be considered by directly adding it to the
right hand side of Eqs. (22) and (24), which serves as the source
term to conservative variables at the cell center and has no effect
on the evaluation of R
k
. This way to consider the external forcing
term F
E
is the same as that in the conventional NavierStokes
solvers.
3.3. Computational sequence
The overall procedure of TLBFS is summarized as follows:
(1) At rst, the lattice velocity model of D2Q9, the equilibrium
density distribution function of Eq. (5) and internal energy
distribution function of Eq. (6) are selected. Then a stream-
ing distance d
x
(d
t
= d
x
) is specied at each interface. As
shown in Fig. 2, to specify d
x
, the constraint that the location
of (r e
a
d
t
) should be within either the cell X
i
or the cell
X
i+1
must be satised. After d
x
is chosen, the single relaxa-
tion parameters s
m
and s
c
are calculated at each interface
using Eqs. (20) and (21), respectively.
(2) For the considered interface position r, identify its surround-
ing positions (r e
a
d
t
), and then apply Eqs. (29) and (30) to
compute the macroscopic ow properties at those positions.
Fig. 1. The D2Q9 lattice velocity model.
Fig. 2. Evaluation of ux at an interface between two control cells.
102 Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
(3) Apply Eqs. (5) and (6) to compute f
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
and
g
eq
a
r e
a
d
t
; t d
t
at the surrounding positions of the
interface.
(4) Compute the macroscopic ow properties q(r, t), u(r, t) and
e(r, t) at the cell interface by using Eqs. (35) and (39), and fur-
ther calculate f
eq
a
r; t and g
eq
a
r; t by using Eqs. (5) and (6).
(5) Calculate f
neq
a
and g
neq
a
by using Eqs. (28) and (36).
(6) Compute the uxes at the cell interface by using Eqs. (25)
(27).
(7) Calculate the external force F
E
.
(8) Compute the uxes R
k
at all cell interfaces and solve ordin-
ary differential equations (24) by using 4-stage RungeKutta
scheme.
(9) Repeat steps (2)(8) until convergence criterion is satised.
4. Numerical examples and discussion
In this section, the present TLBFS is validated by simulating sev-
eral two-dimensional thermal ow problems. First, simulations of
natural convection in a square cavity are carried out on uniform
grids to test the accuracy of TLBFS. Grid-dependent study, accuracy
and efciency of the present method are tested on different grids.
After that, numerical solutions at Ra = 10
3
, 10
4
, 10
5
and 10
6
are ob-
tained and compared with available data in the literature. Second,
numerical experiments of natural convection in a concentric annu-
lus are performed to examine the exibility and capability of TLBFS
on body-tted grids. The solutions of a variety of cases, ranging
from the nearly pure conduction case to the strong convection
case, are examined. Third, mixed convections from a heated cylin-
der are investigated to further verify the capability of TLBFS for
both steady and unsteady heat transfer problems. The effect of
Rayleigh number on the ow pattern is demonstrated.
In all simulations, the D2Q9 lattice velocity model is applied un-
less otherwise specied. The convergence criterion for steady
problems is set to be:

ij
j

u
2
v
2
p

n1

u
2
v
2
p

n
j

ij

u
2
v
2
p

n1
6 5 10
7
40a

ij
jT
n1
T
n
j

ij
jT
n1
j
6 5 10
7
40b
Usually, the external force F
E
for the natural or mixed convec-
tion problem is non-trivial. The buoyancy force always plays an
essential role as an external force. Using the Boussinesq approxi-
mation, F
E
can be dened in the following form:
F
E

0
0
qgbT T
m

0
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
41
where g represents the acceleration due to gravity; b is the thermal
expansion coefcient and T
m
is the average temperature. F
E
is di-
rectly added to the right hand side of Eqs. (22) and (24) at the cell
center as the source term.
4.1. Natural convection in a square cavity
The natural convection in a square cavity, driven by the buoy-
ancy force, is a good benchmark problem for validating new
numerical schemes. This problem has been examined by many
researchers [22,40,41]. The computational domain and boundary
conditions of this problem are shown in Fig. 3. As can be seen in
this gure, a square cavity is bounded by four straight walls. No-
slip boundary condition is applied on all walls. Adiabatic condition
is set on the top and bottom walls while xed temperatures of 1
and 0 are applied on the left and right walls respectively.
The dynamic similarity of the natural convection problem is
determined by the non-dimensional parameters of Prandtl number
Pr and Rayleigh number Ra. They are dened, respectively, as
Pr
m
v
; Ra
gb DT L
3
m v

V
2
c
L
2
m v
42
where L is the characteristic length of the square cavity and
V
c

gbL DT
_
is the characteristic thermal velocity which is con-
strained by the low Mach number limit. In the present simulation,
we set Pr = 0.71 and V
c
= 0.1.
The Nusselt number Nu is commonly used to evaluate the heat
transfer rate. The averaged Nusselt number Nu over the whole ow
domain is dened as:
Nu
L
v DT

1
L
2
t
X
uT v
@T
@x
_ _
dX 43
Fig. 3. The computational domain and corresponding boundary conditions of
natural convection in a square cavity.
Table 1
Grid-dependent study of the natural convection in square cavity at Ra = 10
4
.
Method Mesh u
max
y v
max
x
Nu
Present 101 101 16.19 0.825 19.73 0.115 2.235
151 151 16.17 0.825 19.70 0.117 2.232
201 201 16.16 0.825 19.70 0.118 2.232
251 251 16.16 0.825 19.66 0.119 2.231
DQ [41] 16.19 0.825 19.638 0.120 2.245
Relative error 0.19% 0 0.11% 0.83% 0.62%
Table 2
Comparison of computational time by TLBFS and TLBM for natural convection in a
cavity at Ra = 1000.
Grid
Nu
Iteration
number
Run time(s)
TLBFS TLBM
[42]
TLBFS TLBM
[42]
TLBFS TLBM
[42]
TLBFS/
TLBM (%)
61 61 1.112 1.114 24,950 19,528 142.94 261.5 54.65
101 101 1.115 1.117 30,132 29,980 498.44 1175.1 42.41
121 121 1.115 1.117 43,072 34,980 1128.03 2007.3 56.20
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 103
At rst, grid-dependent study of the natural convection prob-
lem at Ra = 10
4
is conducted on four different uniform grids
(N N, N = 101, 151, 201 and 251). The maximum velocity com-
ponent u
max
on the vertical mid-plane and v
max
on the horizontal
mid-plane, their locations and the average Nusselt number Nu are
selected as the representative properties. They are computed for
comparison with the benchmark data. Table 1 shows the present
results of these representative properties at Ra = 10
4
. Also in-
cluded in this table are the benchmark solutions of Shu and
Xue [41], which are obtained by high order differential quadra-
ture (DQ) method. As can be seen from the table, as the grid is
rened, the representative properties converge to xed values.
The maximum relative errors between the present results and
those of Shu and Xue [41] are within 1%. Good agreement is
achieved.
Table 2 compares the accuracy and efciency of present method
with those of conventional thermal lattice Boltzmann method
(TLBM) [22,42] on the same non-uniform grids of 61 61,
101 101, and 121 121 for the natural convection in a square
cavity at Ra = 1000. Numerical simulations were conducted on Le-
novo Laptop (CPU2.53 GHz and 4G RAM). It can be seen from this
table that the relative errors of Nu on the same grids between
the two results are within 0.2%, which implies that the present
method has the same order of accuracy as TLBM. On the other
hand, in terms of computational efciency, Table 2 shows that
the present method takes at most 56.2% of computational time
needed by TLBM[22,42] although the iteration number of the pres-
ent solver is larger than that of TLBM. The high efciency of present
method is clearly demonstrated.
After numerical test of accuracy and efciency, simulations of
this problem are carried out for a wide range of Rayleigh numbers
from 10
3
to 10
6
. Table 3 compares the present results with those of
Shu and Xue [41] and Peng et al. [22] using TLBM. As can be seen
from this table, the present representative properties show good
agreement with the previous studies of [22,41]. It can also be seen
that u
max
, v
max
and Nu become increasingly larger with increase of
Rayleigh number Ra. As Ra is increased, the position of u
max
on the
vertical mid-plane moves closer to the left boundary while that of
v
max
on the horizontal mid-plane moves towards the upper wall.
These phenomena indicate that the boundary layer becomes thin-
ner. Furthermore, as Ra becomes larger, the natural convection and
heat transfer between the wall and uid are enhanced. These char-
acteristics are further illustrated by the streamlines and isotherms
shown in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. Fig. 4 indicates that the motion
of the uid is enhanced since the number of recirculation zones is
Table 3
Results of natural convection at different Rayleigh numbers.
Ra 10
3
10
4
10
5
10
6
u
max
Present 3.640 16.14 34.87 64.838
TLBM [22] 3.644 16.134 34.261 63.024
DQ [41] 3.649 16.190 34.736 64.775
y Present 0.815 0.825 0.855 0.850
TLBM [22] 0.810 0.820 0.855 0.848
DQ [41] 0.815 0.825 0.855 0.850
v
max
Present 3.708 19.67 68.85 220.92
TLBM [22] 3.691 19.552 67.799 215.26
DQ [41] 3.698 19.638 68.640 220.64
x Present 0.180 0.118 0.065 0.038
TLBM [22] 0.180 0.120 0.065 0.040
DQ [41] 0.180 0.120 0.065 0.035
Nu
Present 1.115 2.232 4.491 8.711
TLBM [22] 1.117 2.241 4.511 8.731
DQ [41] 1.118 2.245 4.523 8.762
Fig. 4. Streamlines at 4 different Rayleigh numbers of Ra = 10
3
, 10
4
, 10
5
and 10
6
.
104 Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
increased from one to three. Fig. 5 shows that the gradients of the
temperature near the hot and cold walls are also increased. All
these observations agree well with previous studies of [22,40,41].
The agreements well validate the present TLBFS.
4.2. Natural convection in a concentric annulus
Although the natural convection problem in a square cavity has
been well investigated to validate the present TLBFS, the geometry
of this problem is nevertheless simple. In order to further examine
the capability of the present solver for problems with curved
boundary, natural convection in a concentric annulus over a wide
range of Rayleigh numbers is simulated.
Fig. 6 shows the schematic diagram for natural convection in a
concentric annulus. As can be seen from this gure, the tempera-
ture of the inner cylinder with a radius of R
i
is T
i
and that of the
outer cylinder with a radius of R
o
is T
o
; the distance L between
these two cylinders is selected as the characteristic length. The dy-
namic similarity of this problem is characterized by three non-
dimensional parameters, i.e., the aspect ratio rr, the Prandlt num-
ber Pr and the Rayleigh number Ra. Pr and Ra have previously been
dened in Eq. (42), whereas rr is dened as
rr
R
o
R
i
44
In the present study, we set rr = 2.6 and Pr = 0.71. Simulations at
six different Rayleigh numbers of Ra = 10
2
, 10
3
, 3 10
3
, 6 -
10
3
, 10
4
and 5 10
4
are carried out on a body-tted O-type grid
Fig. 5. Isotherms at 4 different Rayleigh numbers of Ra = 10
3
, 10
4
, 10
5
and 10
6
.
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the natural convection in a concentric annulus.
Table 4
Comparison of average equivalent heat conductivity at a wide range of Rayleigh
numbers.
Ra Inner cylinder, j
eqi
Outer cylinder, jeqo
Kuehn
[44]
Shu
[43]
Present Kuehn
[44]
Shu
[43]
Present
10
2
1.000 1.001 1.002 1.002 1.001 1.002
10
3
1.081 1.082 1.076 1.084 1.082 1.078
3 10
3
1.404 1.397 1.381 1.402 1.397 1.384
6 10
3
1.736 1.715 1.695 1.735 1.715 1.701
10
4
2.010 1.979 1.960 2.005 1.979 1.960
5 10
4
3.024 2.958 2.941 2.973 2.958 2.941
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 105
of 251 61. The heat transfer efciency of this problem can be
evaluated by the equivalent conductivity as dened in [43]:
j
eqi

lnrr
2prr 1
_
2p
0
@T
@r
dh; for the inner cylinder 45
j
eqo

rr lnrr
2prr 1
_
2p
0
@T
@r
dh; for the outer cylinder 46
Table 4 shows a quantitative comparison of the average equiv-
alent heat conductivities of the inner and outer cylinders at various
Rayleigh numbers. The results of Shu [43] and Kuehn and Goldstein
[44] are included in this table. Note that the results of Shu [43] can
be viewed as benchmark data since they were obtained by high or-
der differential quadrature (DQ) method. The maximum relative
error between the present results and the benchmark data is with-
in 1.2%. It can also be seen from Table 4 that, corresponding to an
increase in Rayleigh number, the equivalent conductivity on both
inner and outer cylinders is increased as well. Good agreements
in quantity have been achieved.
Figs. 7 and 8 show the streamlines and isotherms at
Ra = 10
2
, 10
3
, 3 10
3
, 6 10
3
, 10
4
and 5 10
4
, respectively. It
can be seen fromthese two gures that, when Ra = 10
2
, the stream-
lines are strictly symmetric about the y-axis and almost symmetric
about the x-axis, while the isotherms are nearly symmetric about
any geometrically symmetric axis. This phenomenon indicates that
the ow eld has little effect on the isotherm and thus thermal
conduction dominates the heat transfer. Hence, the heat transfer
efciency is relatively low. When Rayleigh number is in the range
of 10
3
10
4
, the ow pattern belongs to the transition region [44].
Thermal convection is strong enough to inuence the thermal eld
so that the heat transfer efciency is increased. The rotational cen-
ters of the ow eld move upwards gradually and the radial tem-
perature begins to reverse at Ra = 10
4
. When Ra is increased to
5 10
4
, it can be seen that the vortex centers of the ow eld con-
Fig. 7. Streamlines at Ra = 10
2
, 10
3
, 3 10
3
, 6 10
3
, 10
4
and 5 10
4
.
106 Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
tinue to move upwards and the thermal boundary layers of both
inner and outer cylinders separate. The heat transfer rate is the
highest among the cases considered. All these observations from
Figs. 7 and 8 agree well with the experimental results of Kuehn
and Goldstein [44]. The good agreement well demonstrates the
capability of TLBFS for heat transfer problems with curved
boundary.
4.3. Mixed heat transfer from a heated circular cylinder
In previous sub-sections, TLBFS has been validated by simulat-
ing natural convections in a square cavity and a concentric annu-
lus. These two heat transfer problems bounded within an
enclosure are classied as steady internal ows. We further exam-
ine the capability of the present solver by simulating external
mixed convection from a heated circular cylinder. Both steady
and unsteady cases are considered. This problem has numerous
applications in industry such as cooling towers, electronic cooling
and nuclear cooling. Thus, it has been investigated extensively and
Fig. 8. Isotherms for Ra = 10
2
, 10
3
, 3 10
3
, 6 10
3
, 10
4
and 5 10
4
.
Fig. 9. Mixed convective heat transfer from a heated cylinder.
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 107
Fig. 10. Streamlines for mixed convection at various Gr and Re = 20.
Fig. 11. Isotherms for mixed convection at various Gr and Re = 20.
108 Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111
various theoretical, numerical and experimental results are avail-
able in the literature.
Fig. 9 depicts mixed thermal convection from a heated cylinder.
As can be seen, a heated stationary cylinder with a diameter D and
temperature T
w
is placed in a vertically upward free stream with a
uniform velocity U
1
. To better describe this mixed convection
problem, besides the Prandlt number dened in Eq. (43), ve other
key non-dimensional parameters are dened as follows:
Re
U
1
D
m
Reynolds number;
Gr
gbT
w
T
1
D
3
m
2
Grashof number;
R
i

Gr
Re
2
Richardson number
Nu
D
2pT
w
T
1

_
2p
0
@T
@n

w
dh Average Nusselt number;
St
fD
U
1
Strouhal number;
In the present study, a typical O-type structured grid is used for
simulation. For steady and unsteady convections, the computa-
tional grids are set as 301 201 and 301 501, respectively, and
the far-eld boundaries are selected as 25.5 diameters and 55.5
diameters away from the cylinder center, respectively. Since the
far eld boundaries are far enough from the heated cylinder for
both steady and unsteady cases, it is rational to assume that a po-
tential ow with free stream quantities exists in the far eld. In all
cases, we set q
1
= 1.0, U
1
= 0.1, T
w
= 1.0, T
1
= 0 and Pr = 0.7. Ini-
tially, the ow properties are assigned to be the same as the free
stream values.
For steady mixed convection at Re = 20, numerical experiments
are carried out for four different cases of Gr = 0, 100, 800 and 1600.
The streamlines and isotherms of these four cases are plotted in
Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. As can be seen from the streamlines
in Fig. 10, with increase of Gr, the separation angle h
s
is reduced
and the length of the vortex behind the cylinder decreases until
it reduces to zero. The patterns of isotherms depicted in Fig. 11
show that the overall isotherms become thinner and get closer to
the vertical central line as Gr increases. This phenomenon indicates
that the heat transfer rate may increase. This can be veried from
the evolution of the Nusselt number Nu. Table 5 quantitatively
compares the present average Nusselt number Nu and separation
angle h
s
on the solid boundary of the heated cylinder with the re-
sults of Badr [45]. As can be seen from the table, good agreements
between the present solutions and those of Badr [45] are achieved.
It can also be seen that Nu increases, whereas h
s
decreases, as Gr is
increased. These trends agree well with the observations from the
streamlines and isotherms shown in Figs. 10 and 11.
As the Reynolds number is increased to Re = 100, the mixed
thermal convection becomes much more complex. Numerical
experiments are performed for three different Richardson numbers
of R
i
= 0, 0.1 and 0.5. First, quantitative comparisons are made at
Re = 100 and R
i
= 0 to further validate the present TLBFS. Table 6
shows Nu and St at Re = 100 and R
i
= 0. The results of previous stud-
ies [4649] in the literature are also included. It is clearly shown in
this table that the present results agree well with previous studies.
The ow patterns are subsequently investigated for R
i
= 0, 0.1 and
0.5. The streamlines and isotherms are displayed in Figs. 12 and
13. Three different patterns are obtained: (a) unsteady ow with-
out buoyancy; (b) unsteady ow with buoyancy; (c) steady ow
with buoyancy. As shown in these two gures, the alternate vortex
shedding dominates the ow and thermal eld in patterns (a) and
(b). For these two patterns, thermal convection is of great impor-
tance in the heat transfer. As the Richardson number is increased
Table 5
Comparison of average Nusselt number and separation angle on the solid boundary
for steady mixed convection.
Gr
Nu
h
s
(deg)
Present Badr [45] Present Badr [45]
Re = 20 0 2.523 2.540 43.19 43.13
100 2.654 2.640 29.73 29.51
800 3.208 3.227 0.0 0.0
1600 3.554 3.564 0.0 0.0
Table 6
Representative properties for mixed convection at R
i
= 0 and Re = 100.
Nu
St
Hattom et al. [46], (experiment) 5.122
Williamson [47], (experiment) 0.163
Shi et al. [48] 5.142 0.164
Bhattacharyya and Singh [49] 5.114 0.166
Present 5.137 0.163
Fig. 12. Comparison of streamlines at Re = 100 for three different ow patterns: (a) unsteady ow without buoyancy, (b) unsteady ow with buoyancy, and (c) steady ow
with buoyancy.
Y. Wang et al. / Computers & Fluids 94 (2014) 98111 109
to 0.5, the ow nally reaches a steady state. Both the streamlines
and isotherms are symmetrical about the y axis. The effect of ther-
mal convection becomes weak as compared to that corresponding
to unsteady patterns. All these observations agree well with those
of Chang and Sa [50].
5. Conclusions
In this paper, TLBFS is presented for simulation of thermal ow
problems on both uniform and non-uniform meshes. It applies the
modern nite volume method to solve the governing differential
equations recovered by the multi-scale ChapmanEnskog expan-
sion analysis of thermal lattice Boltzmann equations. The uxes
of TLBFS are evaluated by local reconstruction of TLBM solutions
of the density and internal energy distribution functions. Since
the distribution functions include both the equilibrium and non-
equilibrium parts, the convective and diffusive uxes are obtained
simultaneously. The boundary conditions are directly imple-
mented by using the macroscopic variables to evaluate the uxes.
The conservative properties are marched in time at the center of
each control cell.
The present TLBFS is validated by simulating natural convection
in enclosures and mixed convection from a heated cylinder. The
obtained numerical results show good agreement with the data
available in the literature. Through numerical validation, it has
been shown that TLBFS can be effectively and exibly applied in
heat transfer problems with curved boundary. The constraints of
conventional TLBMare removed in the present TLBFS. It seems that
TLBFS has a great potential in simulating practical heat transfer
problems.
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