An immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method for gaseous slip flow

An immersed boundary (IB)-lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is proposed for microchannel slip flow encountered in microfluidics applications such as microelectromechanical Systems, filtration applications with nanofibers, polymer processing, and unconventional shale gas and coal seam gas applications. The LB method is theoretically analyzed to have an intrinsic ability to model velocity discontinuities at finite Knudsen numbers (Kn) when a sufficiently fine grid spacing and an external continuous perturbation, e.g., the body force of an IB method, are applied. Based on this analysis, an IB method coupled with a LB framework without ghost grids in nonfluid areas is proposed to study gaseous slip flow at finite Kn. In addition, an improved treatment to the suspending grids in nonfluid areas is proposed to assist the IB-LB method. In the simulations of two-dimensional Poiseuille and Couette flows for 0.01 <= Kn <= 1, the slip flow predicted by the proposed nonghost-grid IB-LB method achieves good agreement with that predicted by the linearized Boltzmann and/or Direct Simulation Monte Carlo methods up to Kn = 0.2. Since the proposed IB-LB method is free of adjustable parameters and slip velocity models, it provides a simple and promising pathway for modeling microscale flow applications for the validated regime, i.e., Kn < = 0.2. Published under license by AIP Publishing.