Extending a CAD-Based Cartesian Mesh Generator for the Lattice Boltzmann Method

Conference · Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2012

OSTI ID:1058938

Cantrell, J Nathan ^[1]; Inclan, Eric J ^[1]; Joshi, Abhijit S ^[1]; Popov, Emilian L ^[1]; Jain, Prashant K ^[1]

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1. ORNL

This paper describes the development of a custom preprocessor for the PaRAllel Thermal Hydraulics simulations using Advanced Mesoscopic methods (PRATHAM) code based on an open-source mesh generator, CartGen [1]. PRATHAM is a three-dimensional (3D) lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) based parallel flow simulation software currently under development at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The LBM algorithm in PRATHAM requires a uniform, coordinate system-aligned, non-body-fitted structured mesh for its computational domain. CartGen [1], which is a GNU-licensed open source code, already comes with some of the above needed functionalities. However, it needs to be further extended to fully support the LBM specific preprocessing requirements. Therefore, CartGen is being modified to (i) be compiler independent while converting a neutral-format STL (Stereolithography) CAD geometry to a uniform structured Cartesian mesh, (ii) provide a mechanism for PRATHAM to import the mesh and identify the fluid/solid domains, and (iii) provide a mechanism to visually identify and tag the domain boundaries on which to apply different boundary conditions.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1058938
• Resource Relation: Conference: 2012 ANS Winter Meeting and Nuclear Technology Expo, San Diego, CA, USA, 20121111, 20121115
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

LBM
CartGen
Cartesian Grid
Turbulent Flows
PRATHAM