MESH-ONLY CURVED BOUNDARY HANDLING IN LATTICE BOLTZMANN METHOD VIA RAY-TRACING: ELIMINATING ANALYTICAL SURFACE REQUIREMENTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CFD
Mohamed Hamdi, Souheil Elalimi
Laboratory for the Study of Thermal & Energy Systems, National Engineering School of Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia
Keywords: Lattice Boltzmann Method, ray-tracing boundaries, STL meshes, drag coefficient, CFD preprocessing
Abstract
This paper presents a computationally efficient ray-tracing boundary treatment for the Lattice Boltzmann Method, which accurately handles complex geometries using only discrete surface meshes, eliminating the need for analytical curvature descriptions. The key innovation is a robust geometric intersection algorithm that leverages ray-segment (2D) and ray-plane (3D) tests to precisely locate boundary points, requiring no pre-processing while maintaining second-order accuracy via the conventional bounce-back scheme. Validations—including 2D cylinders (Re = 100), NACA0012 airfoils (Re = 500), and 3D spheres—show exceptional agreement (≤3% error in drag with 64-128 vertices; <10% deviation from high-fidelity benchmarks). The method’s simplicity, accuracy, and seamless CAD compatibility make it ideal for industrial LBM applications in the automotive, aerospace, and energy sectors.
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