Timm Krüger Knihy

This book is an introduction to the theory, practice, and implementation of the Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method, a powerful computational fluid dynamics method that is steadily gaining attention due to its simplicity, scalability, extensibility, and simple handling of complex geometries. The book contains chapters on the method's background, fundamental theory, advanced extensions, and implementation. To aid beginners, the most essential paragraphs in each chapter are highlighted, and the introductory chapters on various LB topics are front-loaded with special „in a nutshell“ sections that condense the chapter's most important practical results. Together, these sections can be used to quickly get up and running with the method. Exercises are integrated throughout the text, and frequently asked questions about the method are dealt with in a special section at the beginning. In the book itself and through its web page, readers can find example codes showing how the LB method can be implemented efficiently on a variety of hardware platforms, including multi-core processors, clusters, and graphics processing units. Students and scientists learning and using the LB method will appreciate the wealth of clearly presented and structured information in this volume.

The rheology of dense red blood cell suspensions is investigated via computer simulations based on the lattice Boltzmann, the immersed boundary, and the finite element methods. The red blood cells are treated as extended and deformable particles immersed in the ambient fluid. In the first part of the work, the numerical model and strategies for stress evaluation are discussed. In the second part, the behavior of the suspensions in simple shear flow is studied for different volume fractions, particle deformabilities, and shear rates. Shear thinning behavior is recovered. The existence of a shear-induced transition from a tumbling to a tank-treading motion is demonstrated. The transition can be parameterized by a single quantity, namely the effective capillary number. It is the ratio of the suspension stress and the characteristic particle membrane stress. At the transition point, a strong increase in the orientational order of the red blood cells and a significant decrease of the particle diffusivity are observed. However, the average cell deformation shows no signature of the transition.