An efficient swap algorithm for the lattice Boltzmann method

During the last decade, the lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) as a valuable tool in computational fluid dynamics has been increasingly acknowledged. The widespread application of LBM is partly due to the simplicity of its coding. The most well-known algorithms for the implementation of the standard lattice-Boltzmann equation (LBE) are the two-lattice and two-step algorithms. However, implementations of the two-lattice or the two-step algorithm suffer from high memory consumption or poor computational performance, respectively. Ultimately, the computing resources available decide which of the two disadvantages is more critical. Here we introduce a new algorithm, called the swap algorithm, for the implementation of LBE. Simulation results demonstrate that implementations based on the swap algorithm can achieve high computational performance and have very low memory consumption. Furthermore, we show how the performance of its implementations can be further improved by code optimization. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.