NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF FREE CONVECTIVE FLOW USING THE LATTICE-BOLTZMANN SCHEME

Free convective flow in a square cavity at Ra = 10(6) and Pr = 0.71 is considered using the lattice-Boltzmann discretization scheme. This scheme is a new type of simulation method for solving the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations in an incompressible flow regime. It has been extended by a scalar transport equation and by a coupling of the scalar quantity with the momentum equations to enable simulations of nonisothermal flows. A fairly simple flow configuration with fixed temperature vertical walls and adiabatic horizontal walls has been selected as a test case to study the performance of the extended lattice-Boltzmann scheme. Various flow quantities related to different regions of the convective flow, such as vertical and horizontal boundary layers and the core region, agree well with benchmark data and demonstrate the potential of the lattice-Boltzmann scheme for numerical simulations of flows with (multicomponent) scalar transport.