Modeling reacting multi-species flows with a detailed multi-fluid lattice Boltzmann scheme

Abstract

Recent advances and findings reported in the literature show that the lattice Boltzmann method can be a viable and rather efficient alternative to classical numerical methods in modeling multi-species flows. Based on the kinetic theory of multicomponent gases, multi-fluid approaches are derived. Each species evolves according to the specific properties, a proper coupling must be introduced for modeling the diffusivity. In recent years, a discrete kinetic scheme for multi-component flows has been proposed which was able to solve the Maxwell-Stefan system of equations for any number of species. However, reacting flows lead to additional challenges and have seldom been studied by lattice Boltzmann method. The aim of the present work is to implement this model in the lattice Boltzmann solver, extend it to take account multiple chemical reactions. The temperature is modeled through separate distribution function and the flow distribution function is assumed to be independent of temperature. The performance has been checked for a binary diffusion flow and a counter-current propane/air re-acting flow. The obtained results show that this model able to deal with multi-species flows and solves the multi-component system of equations.