Lattice-Boltzmann Simulations of Three-Dimensional Fluid Flow on a Desktop Computer

The lattice-Boltzmann (LB) method is a cellular automaton
approach to simulating fluid flow with many advantages
over conventional methods based on the Navier−Stokes
equations. It is conceptually simple, amenable to a wide
array of boundary conditions, and can be adapted to
handle thermal, density, miscibility, and other effects. The
LB approach has been used to model a number of fluid
systems of interest to analytical chemists, including chromatography columns, micromixers, and electroosmotic
pumps. However, widespread use of this tool has been
limited, in part because virtually all large-scale 3D simulations in the literature have been executed on supercomputers. This work demonstrates that such simulations can
be executed in reasonable periods of time (hours) on a
desktop computer using a cross-platform software package that is easy to learn and use. This package incorporates several improvements that enhance the utility of the
LB approach, including an algorithm for speeding common calculations by 2 orders of magnitude and a scheme
for handling convection−diffusion equations of interest in
electrochemical and surface reaction studies.