Lattice Boltzmann in micro- and nano-flow simulations

One of the fundamental difficulties in microand nano-flow simulations is that the validity’s of the continuum assumption and the hydro-dynamic equations start to become questionable in this flow regime. The lower-level kinetic/molecular alternatives are often either prohibitively expensive for practical purposes or poorly justified from a fundamental perspective. The lattice Boltzmann (LB) method, which originated from a simplistic Boolean kinetic model, is recently shown to converge asymptotically to the continuum Boltzmann-BGK equation and therefore offers a theoretically sound and computationally effective approach for microand nano-flow simulations. In addition, its kinetic nature allows certain microscopic physics to be modeled at the macroscopic level, leading to a highly efficient model for multiphase flows with phase transitions. With the inherent computational advantages of a lattice model, e.g., the algorithm simplicity and parallelizability, the ease of handling complex geometry and so on, the LB method has found many applications in various areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and matured to the extend of commercial applications. In this talk, I shall give an introduction to the LB method with the emphasis given to the theoretical justifications for its applications in microand nano-flow simulations. Some recent examples will also be reported.