Constraint Penalization Method in the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) for Fluid-Structure Interaction

TL;DR

This paper introduces a constraint penalization technique within the Lattice Boltzmann Method to efficiently simulate fluid-structure interactions involving rigid bodies, maintaining simplicity and accuracy without complex force calculations.

Contribution

It extends the fictitious domain approach by applying a penalization term directly to the fluid velocity, simplifying fluid-structure coupling in LBM simulations.

Findings

Accurately reproduces rigid-body motion and hydrodynamics

Maintains computational efficiency with minimal overhead

Successfully applied to particle sedimentation scenarios

Abstract

A constraint penalization method is introduced within the Lattice Boltzmann (LBM) framework to model fluid-structure interactions involving rigid bodies. The proposed approach extends the fictitious domain concept by enforcing the rigid-body motion through a penalization term directly applied to the fluid velocity field, eliminating the need for explicit Lagrange multipliers or interface force computation. This formulation preserves the locality and simplicity of the LBM algorithm while ensuring an implicit coupling between the fluid and solid regions. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the method accurately reproduces rigid-body motion and hydrodynamic interactions with minimal additional computational cost. The method is applied to particle sedimentation, starting with a simple example and progressing to increasingly complex cases.