SUMMARY

The thermal properties of complex suspension flows are investigated using direct numerical computations. Examples of such fluids are nano/micro fluids, fiber suspensions in a paper making machine, particle filled thermal interface materials, food products, fluidized beds, chemical products and biological systems. The method presented here is based on the solution of the discrete Boltzmann equation over a lattice space for the fluid phase. It has been shown that the lattice Boltzmann equation with an appropriate equilibrium distribution function reduces to the full Navier-Stokes equations. This is a robust and efficient computational method for the analysis of solid particles suspended in fluid. An advantage of the lattice Boltzmann method is that the code can be easily implemented on parallel processors because of the local nature of the time evolution operator. Another advantage of this method is that the computational time is independent of the Reynolds number and weakly dependent on the number of solid particles, although it is dependent on the size of the computational domain. The method presented here is based on solving the lattice Boltzmann equation for the fluid phase, as it is coupled to the Newtonian dynamics equations to model the movement of particles and the energy equation to find the thermal properties. This is a direct numerical simulation that models the free movement of the solid particles suspended in the flow and its effect on the temperature distribution.