Investigation of flows in solidification by using the lattice Boltzmann method

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is adopted to solve melting and solidification problems. D2Q9 lattice is used to solve 2D fluid flow and heat transfer problem by using two distribution functions approach. The phase interface is traced by using partial or probabilistic bounce back approach suggested by Thorne and Sukop [D.T. Thorne, M. Sukop, Lattice Boltzmann method for the Elder problem, in: C.T. Miller, M.W. Farthing, W.G. Gray, G.F. Pinder (Eds.), Proceedings of Int. Conf. Computational Methods in Water Resources (CMWR XV), June 13–17, 2004, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, Elsevier, Amsterdam] for simulation of flow in porous medium. The considered scheme is first validated for natural convection without and with phase change coupling and results were well compared with benchmark and with published experimental results. Also, the predicted solutions for phase change problems were compared with the predictions of conventional method. The results are interesting and demonstrate that approach can produce dependable results.