A Parallel Coupled Lattice Boltzmann-Volume of Fluid Framework for Modeling Porous Media Evolution

In this paper, we present a framework for the modeling and simulation of a subset of physical/chemical processes occurring on different spatial and temporal scales in porous materials. In order to improve our understanding of such processes on multiple spatio-temporal scales, small-scale simulations of transport and reaction are of vital importance. Due to the geometric complexity of the pore space and the need to consider a representative elementary volume, such simulations require substantial numerical resolutions, leading to potentially huge computation times. An efficient parallelization of such numerical methods is thus vital to obtain results in acceptable wall-clock time. The goal of this paper was to improve available approaches based on lattice Boltzmann methods (LBMs) to reliably and accurately predict the combined effects of mass transport and reaction in porous media. To this end, we relied on the factorized central moment LBM as a second-order accurate approach for modeling transport. In order to include morphological changes due to the dissolution of the solid phase, the volume of fluid method with the piece-wise linear interface construction algorithm was employed. These developments are being integrated into the LBM research code VirtualFluids. After the validation of the analytic test cases, we present an application of diffusion-controlled dissolution for a pore space obtained from computer tomography (CT) scans

Mesoscopic Methods in Engineering and Science

(First paragraph) Matter, conceptually classified into fluids and solids, can be completely described by the microscopic physics of its constituent atoms or molecules. However, for most engineering applications a macroscopic or continuum description has usually been sufficient, because of the large disparity between the spatial and temporal scales relevant to these applications and the scales of the underlying molecular dynamics. In this case, the microscopic physics merely determines material properties such as the viscosity of a fluid or the elastic constants of a solid. These material properties cannot be derived within the macroscopic framework, but the qualitative nature of the macroscopic dynamics is usually insensitive to the details of the underlying microscopic interactions

Mesoscopic Methods in Engineering and Science

(First paragraph) Matter, conceptually classified into fluids and solids, can be completely described by the microscopic physics of its constituent atoms or molecules. However, for most engineering applications a macroscopic or continuum description has usually been sufficient, because of the large disparity between the spatial and temporal scales relevant to these applications and the scales of the underlying molecular dynamics. In this case, the microscopic physics merely determines material properties such as the viscosity of a fluid or the elastic constants of a solid. These material properties cannot be derived within the macroscopic framework, but the qualitative nature of the macroscopic dynamics is usually insensitive to the details of the underlying microscopic interactions

Mesoscopic Methods in Engineering and Science

(First paragraph) Matter, conceptually classified into fluids and solids, can be completely described by the microscopic physics of its constituent atoms or molecules. However, for most engineering applications a macroscopic or continuum description has usually been sufficient, because of the large disparity between the spatial and temporal scales relevant to these applications and the scales of the underlying molecular dynamics. In this case, the microscopic physics merely determines material properties such as the viscosity of a fluid or the elastic constants of a solid. These material properties cannot be derived within the macroscopic framework, but the qualitative nature of the macroscopic dynamics is usually insensitive to the details of the underlying microscopic interactions

Computational Steering in Civil Engineering

Computational Steering provides methods for the integration of modeling, simulation, visualization, data analysis and post processing. The user has full control over a running simulation and the possibility to modify objects (geometry and other properties), boundary conditions and other parameters of the system interactively. The objective of such a system is to explore the effects of changes made immediately and thus to optimize the target problem interactively. We present a computational steering based system for fluid flow problems in civil engineering. It is based on three software components as shown in figure 1. The modeler is the CAD-system AutoCAD, which offers a powerful programming interface allowing an efficient access to the geometric data. It also offers convenient manipulators for geometric objects. The simulation kernel is a Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) solver for the Navier-Stokes equations, which is especially suitable for instationary flows in complex geometries. For the visualization and postprocessing we use the software tool AVS, which provides a powerful programming interface and allows the efficient visualization of flow fields. These three components are interconnected through two communication modules and three interfaces as depicted in figure 1. Interface 1 is responsible for the transformation of the modified system for the simulation kernel, interface 2 is responsible for the proper preparation of the simulation data whereas interface 3 transforms the data from the modeler into a format suitable for the visualization system. The whole system is synchronized by the two communication modules

Dedication to Pierre Lallemand on the Occasion of His Retirement

The fourth international conference for mesoscopic methods in engineering and science (http://www.icmmes. org), held in Munich, Germany, 16–20 July 2007, was closed with a celebration honouring Dr Pierre Lallemand on the occasion of his retirement from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) after more than 40 years of service