Presentador: Orlando Ayala, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University, Virginia, USA.

Abstract: The Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is a relatively new scheme that has gained exponential popularity in the past 15 years. Originally created to model fluid mechanics, it was inspired from the Lattice Gas Automata method. LBM has evolved far past its original purpose and is being used to simulate many other scientific problems. In LBM a known amount of pseudo-particles are used to simulate the collision and movement of particles in a system with a fluid in motion. Each pseudo-particle represents a varying amount of actual particles in the system that collides with other pseudo-particles at a known velocity at prescribed locations. At each collision one calculation is done for every possible direction the actual particles could go, the amount of directions are set to be known and controlled resulting in more efficient use of power and resources.

In this talk, I will provide insights on the history of the LBM, describe in more detail how the method works, mention its advantages and limitations and compare it against other CFD methods, talk about the current LBM development areas, and briefly prove why the method accurately solve different phenomena. I will also discuss different research areas I have been involved with using LBM, including the joint work with Dr. Torres and his graduate student Mr. Álvaro Salinas (both from Departamento de Informática - UTFSM) to study shallow waters and tsunami propagation waves on open ocean.