A GPU-version lattice Boltzmann method for solving fluid-particle interaction problems

An immersed-boundary lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) is developed on a graphical processing unit (GPU) to simulate fluid-particle interaction problems. This method uses the lattice Boltzmann method to solve the incompressible flow field and the immersed boundary method to handle the fluid-particle interaction. A direct forcing method is introduced in the IB method to capture the particle motion. To demonstrate of the efficiency and capabilities of the numerical method, a flow in a square pipe and sedimentations of one and many spherical particles in an enclosure are simulated. The numerical results indicate that a speedup of over 60 times when compared to the time required by a single CPU on the flow in a square pipe, a speedup of over 30-45 times on the sedimentation of one spherical particle, and a speedup of about 40-60 times on the sedimentation of large numbers of spherical particles are achieved.