Lattice Boltzmann method for direct numerical simulation of turbulent flows

Abstract

We present three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the Kida vortex flow, a prototypical turbulent flow, using a novel high-order lattice Boltzmann (LB) model. Extensive comparisons of various global and local statistical quantities obtained with an incompressible-flow spectral element solver are reported. It is demonstrated that the LB method is a promising alternative for DNS as it quantitatively captures all the computed statistics of fluid turbulence.