Large scale lattice Boltzmann simulation for the coupling of free and porous media flow

TL;DR

This paper presents large-scale lattice Boltzmann simulations to study the interaction between free flow and porous media flow, comparing pore-scale and homogenized models, and evaluating different interface coupling approaches.

Contribution

It introduces a scalable simulation scheme for coupled free and porous media flow and compares interface models at multiple scales.

Findings

Single-domain approach better recovers pore-scale results.

Two-domain interface models are sensitive to interface positioning.

Efficient, scalable simulation methods are developed for large systems.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the interaction of free and porous media flow by large scale lattice Boltzmann simulations. We study the transport phenomena at the porous interface on multiple scales, i.e., we consider both, computationally generated pore-scale geometries and homogenized models at a macroscopic scale. The pore-scale results are compared to those obtained by using different transmission models. Two-domain approaches with sharp interface conditions, e.g., of Beavers--Joseph--Saffman type, as well as a single-domain approach with a porosity depending viscosity are taken into account. For the pore-scale simulations, we use a highly scalable communication-reducing scheme with a robust second order boundary handling. We comment on computational aspects of the pore-scale simulation and on how to generate pore-scale geometries. The two-domain approaches depend sensitively on the choice of the exact position of the interface, whereas a well-designed single-domain approach can significantly better recover the averaged pore-scale results.