Simulation of mesoscale interfacial properties using the lattice Boltzmann method

We derive the mesoscopic interparticle potentials from macroscopic thermodynamics for van der Waals, Redlich-Kwong, and Redlich-Kwong-Soave equations of state and find that all these potentials are very similar to the Lennard-Jones potential. To in-vestigate the interfacial property at the mesoscale level, we incorporate free energy functions into the single-component multiphase lattice Boltzmann model and obtain the saturated density coexistence curves and interface mass density profiles across the interface using this method with different equations of state. The simulation results accurately reproduce the properties of equilibrium thermodynamics. Numerical results for single-component phase transitions indicate that a bubble-growth process is obtained and the equilibrium phase diagram is achieved at a given temperature. Bulk free energy, the interfacial energy coefficient, and other properties of nonequilibrium thermodynamic parameters, which are used to examine interfacial properties, are obtained in these simulations, and all these parameters are found to obey irreversible thermodynamics.     

Simulation of phase transition process using lattice Boltzmann method

A new lattice Boltzmann model based on SC model, is proposed to describe the liquid-vapor phase transitions. The new model is validated through the simulation of the one-component phase transition process. Compared with the simulation results of van der Waals gas and the Maxwell equal-area construction, the results of the new model have a better agreement with the analytical solutions than those of SC and Zhang models. Since the obtained temperature range and the maximum density ratio in this model are expanded, and the magnitude of maximum spurious current is only between those of SC and Zhang models, it is believed that this new model has better stability than SC and Zhang models. Consequently, the application scope of this new model is expanded compared with the existing phase transition models. According to the principle of the corresponding states in engineering thermodynamics, the simulations of ammonia and water phase transition process were implemented using this new model with different equations of state. Compared with the experimental data of ammonia and water, the results show that the Peng-Robinson is the best equation of state to describe the phase transition process of ammonia and water. Especially, the simulation results of ammonia with Peng-Robinson equation of state have an excellent agreement with its experimental data. Therefore these simulation results have a significant influence on the real engineering applications.