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International Conference On Materials And Energy 2015, ICOME 15, 19-22 May 2015, Tetouan,
Morocco, and the International Conference On Materials And Energy 2016, ICOME 16, 17-20 May
2016, La Rochelle, France
The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling
The lattice Boltzmann method for Mixed Convection in a Cavity
Assessing the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor
Samir Houat*, Zine Elabidine Bouayed
temperature function for a long-term district heat demand forecast
"MNEPM Laboratory, MSMPT group, Department of mechanics engineering."
a,b,c "University ofaAbdelHamid Ibn Badis, BP300, 27000bMostaganem, Algeria" c
I. Andrić *, A. Pina , P. Ferrão , J. Fournier ., B. Lacarrière , O. Le Correc
a

a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Abstract Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
In this work, a numerical study of the laminar mixed convection in a opened square cavity is presented. Two opposite and
staggered openings distributed over the two lateral walls are proposed with 20% size of the height of the cavity. The bottom wall
being hot and all others are considered adiabatic. The lattice Boltzmann method with the double population thermal model was
Abstract
used. A computer code was developed with the D2Q9 model for the velocity field and D2Q5 for the temperature field to
determine the whole
District heating structure
networks areofcommonly
the flow. addressed
The results
in are
the presented in the
literature as one form
of theofmost
hydrodynamic and thermal
effective solutions for fields for the
decreasing the
Richardson
greenhousenumber Ri = 10,from
gas emissions and the
are building
compared with These
sector. resultssystems
computing withhigh
require one investments
conventionalwhich
method
areespecially finite volume.
returned through the heat
The obtained
sales. Due toresults show good
the changed agreement
climate betweenand
conditions thebuilding
two methods.
renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease,
prolonging the investment return period.
©The
2017 Thescope
main Authors. Published
of this paper isby
toElsevier
assess theLtd.
feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand
Peer-review under
forecast. The responsibility
district of thelocated
of Alvalade, scientific
in committee of ICOME
Lisbon (Portugal), was2015 andasICOME
used a case 2016.
study. The district is consisted of 665
buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district
Keywords: Lattice Boltzmann method, mixed Convection, opened square cavity, finite volume method
renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were
compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors.
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
1.(the
Introduction
error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
The
Themixed
value convection heat transfer
of slope coefficient is by
increased ondefinition the coupling
average within the rangeofoftwo
3.8%convection
up to 8% modes: natural
per decade, that and forced. This
corresponds to the
mode has inreceived
decrease considerable
the number interest
of heating hours of from
22-139hseveral
duringresearches,
the heating for technological
season (depending onapplications such of
the combination as:weather
building
and
ventilation, chemicalconsidered).
renovation scenarios depositionOn of the
thinother
films, thefunction
hand, coolingintercept
of electronic
increasedparts, heat sinks
for 7.8-12.7% perindecade
solar (depending
collectors on
andthe
nuclear
coupledreactors.
scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and
Due to the
improve the practical importance
accuracy of heat demand ofestimations.
the study of heat transfer by convection mixed in the enclosures has attracted
remarkable attention over the last decades. A large number of numerical studies based on conventional methods,
© 2017
were The Authors.
conducted Published by
on ventilated Elsevier Ltd.
enclosures. The different configurations of the position of the openings are studied
with an isothermal wall [1, 2] or athe
Peer-review under responsibility of Scientific
wall heated Committee
with a heatofflux
The [3].
15th International Symposium on District Heating and
Cooling.
*Corresponding author. Tel.:+213-556-763310
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change

1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of ICOME 2015 and ICOME 2016.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of ICOME 2015 and ICOME 2016
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.11.194
 Samir Houat et al. / Energy Procedia 139 (2017) 186–191 187
2 Samir Houat and Zine Elabidine Bouayed / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

E-mail address: sa_houat@yahoo.fr

Other numerical and experimental studies [4, 5] treated the effect of the geometry of an obstacle like the source of
heat inside the cavity in order to maximize the total conductance. The position of the air entry and the exit has a
great effect on the hydrodynamic and thermal structures [6]. One cavity that has several entries [7] improves its
ventilation. In this work, a numerical contribution with a thermal lattice Boltzmann method in this domain is
proposed.
The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) [8] is a relatively new and original numerical method that has emerged in last
years. Its interested, neither at the macroscopic quantities: velocity, pressure and density resolved by Navier-Stokes
equations, but directly by the distribution of different particles constitute a fluid in the study domain. This approach
is called a mesoscopic representation. What makes it competitive with other conventional methods such as finite
volumes, finite elements and finite difference. This method is based on the lattice gas method with the theory of
cellular automata [9] and on the formalism of statistical physics. It is important to situate its performance compared
to conventional numerical methods to simulate and reproduce the isothermal or thermal fluid flows.
The thermal lattice Boltzmann model (TLBM) [8] with Bhatnagar, Gross and Krook (BGK) approach [10], In
general, can be categorized into two types [11]. The first one is the multi-speed approach and the second one is the
passive scalar model. The major advantage of the passive scalar model over the multi-speed approach is the
enhancement of numerical stability, and this last is commonly adopted. In the passive scalar thermal lattice
Boltzmann models [11, 12], a separate distribution function is used to solve the temperature distribution.
The study presented in this work, is a numerical contribution of mixed convection flow in a square cavity with two
openings. The inner walls of the latter are assumed adiabatic except for the one on the down side, it is considered
isothermal. The thermal model of the Lattice Boltzmann method on double population in two dimensions is applied.
The nine-speed lattice (D2Q9) is used to reproduce the dynamic field, and the five-speed lattice (D2Q5) is used for
the temperature field. Thus, a rigorous comparison of the velocities fields and temperature should be conducted
between: the conventional approach specially the finite volume method (FVM) and that of Boltzmann method. This
will allow us to determine the performance of this new numerical method in this area.

2. Physical description of the problem

The model chosen is a square cavity of height H with two ventilation openings, the first located in the lower left
corner side L1 and the second located in the upper right side L2= L1= L=20% H. The walls of this cavity are
adiabatic except the lower wall which is maintained by a source of heat at a constant temperature Th. The air enters
through the left wall opening with a temperature T0 and a uniform velocity Uinlet as fig.1 shows it. The assumptions
used are summarized in the case of an incompressible and Newtonian fluid. The flow is laminar, stationary and in
two dimensions satisfying the Boussinesq assumption. We neglect a heat transfer by radiation and the heat
dissipation by effect of viscosity.

Fig.1. Configuration of the physical problem

The classical equations governing the flow are the continuity equation, the momentum equation and the energy
equation. The characteristic parameters for the flow are the Prandlt number Pr=ν/α, the Richardson number
Ri=Gr/(Re)², with Grashof number Gr=(β∆tgH3)/ν² and Reynolds number Re=LUinlet/ν. In this work, the
mesoscopic description is used with lattice Boltzmann method.
188 Samir Houat et al. / Energy Procedia 139 (2017) 186–191
Samir Houat and Zine Elabidine Bouayed / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 3

3. Thermal lattice Boltzmann method (TLBM)

For the incompressible thermal flow problems, the double population thermal Lattice Boltzmann method
utilizes two independent distribution functions, f and g, for the flow and the temperature fields respectively [12,13].
After the introduction of the BGK approximation [10], the governing equations for the two distribution functions
can be written as:
 
For the flow:   +  ∆,  + ∆ −  ,  = −  ,  −  ,  + F (1)

 
For the temperature:   +  ∆,  + ∆ −  ,  = −  ,  −  ,  (2)


Where  are the discrete particle velocity vectors, ∆ is the lattice step time witch is set to unity.
 and   are the relaxation time for the flow and temperature respectively.
Fi is the buoyancy force term applied with The Boussinesq approximation. This approximation, it is assumed that all
fluid properties can be considered as constant in the body force term except for the temperature dependence of the
density in the gravity term. So the external force in Eq. (1) is: Fi =3 G (c - u) fieq , where G is the contribution from
buoyancy force.
In this approach the physical space is divided into uniform Cartesian cells, and the velocity space is discretized into
a finite set of velocities { }. For this work, we consider the two-dimensional nine velocities model (D2Q9) for the
dynamic field is,
0,0 i = 0
   
c = c[cos   π , sin   π i = 1,2,3,4 (3)
     
√2c cos   π +   , sin   π +   i = 5,6,7,8 

And for D2Q5 for the thermal field:

0,0 i = 0
c = c[cos  π , sin  π i = 1,2,3,4 (4)
 

 
The local equilibrium distribution functions  and  for the flow field and the temperature field are given by:

 3 .  9 .  3

 =   1 + + −  (5)
 2  2

 3 . 
 =   1 +  (6)

ρ and u are density and the macroscopic velocity,  = 4/9,  =  =  =  = 1/9, and  =  =  =
 = 1/36 are the weighting factor for flow and  = 1/3,  =  =  =  = 1/6 are the weighting factor
for the temperature field.
The thermal diffusivity α and kinematic viscosity ν are respectively related to the relaxation time by:
1 1
α = τ −   ∆ and ν = τ −   ∆ (7)
2 2
Where:  = /√3 is the lattice speed of sound.
The macroscopic density, velocity and temperature can be calculated in terms of these variables by:
  
1
 =   =     =   (8)

  
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4 Samir Houat and Zine Elabidine Bouayed / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

4. Validation of the computing code

In this section we present the results of validation for the used simulation codes in this study, based on the
classical problem test of the natural convection in a square cavity differentially heated. In this configuration two
horizontal walls: the top and bottom are considered adiabatic and lateral walls are differentially heated. We compare
the results of the average Nusselt value obtained by the two methods with those of the literature.
The simulation is for Rayleigh numbers between Ra=103-105 and Prandtl number Pr=0.71. The mesh study
based on lattice Boltzmann method with two population model (TLBM) was performed. This last was satisfactory
between 71x71 and 151x151 for different Rayleigh numbers. We also conducted the numerical solution of the
Navier-Stokes equations for the same test case using the Fluent software based on the finite volume method (FVM)
[14].
The numerical results of average Nusselt number is shown in TABLE I. It is clear that the results of the TLBM
model are in good agreement with the results of the literature in the range of Rayleigh numbers tested. The error
calculated for the average Nusselt number Nu, does not exceed 1.2% compared to the reference results [15] and
1.9% compared to [16]. Similarly, the results obtained with the Fluent code show good agreement with those
obtained by the code TLBM where the error does not access 1.2%.

Table 1. The results of the Nusselt values with Rayleigh number

Present work Literature results

Ra De Vahl Davis Markatos &
TLBM FVM
[15] Pericleous [16]
103 1.115 1.116 1.118 1.108

104 2.221 2.242 2.243 2.201

5
10 4.461 4.515 4.519 4.430

5. Results and discussion

The numerical study of the square cavity ventilated with two openings (Fig.1) with: the Rayleigh number
Ri=10, the prandtl number Pr=0.71 and the Grashof number Gr =105.The inlet fluid flow is cold. The simulation is
performed with both numerical methods: the thermal lattice Boltzmann using the developed code and the finite
volume using the fluent code.
The numerical solution for the finite volume method [14] is based on the SIMPLE algorithm for the coupling
velocities and pressure in the Navier-Stokes. The pressure equation is discretized by the PRESTO scheme. The
second order interpolation schemes have been adopted for the other equations. The solution is considered
converging when the residue of algebraic equations is less than 10-5.
Several meshes were used to see the effects on the numerical solution: from 60*60 to 160*160. To validate the
mesh, we found that the Nusselt number increases with the mesh. This later is validated in this type of problem with
the study of the convergence of the velocity profile and temperature at Y=1/2. We found that the velocity and
temperature profiles at Y=1/2 for Ri = 10 converge with a mesh size of 120*120.
For the thermal lattice Boltzmann method, the boundary conditions for Zou and He are applied in inlet/outlet
flow. The bounce back condition is used for all walls. The hydrodynamic field is modeled by the D2Q9 lattice and
the thermal field by D2Q5 lattice. The solution is considered converging when the residue of the velocity and the
temperature are less than 10-7. Several meshes were used to study the convergence of solution with respect to the
value of average Nusselt. We have noticed that the mesh 151 * 151 is enough.
We note that the physical phenomenon of mixed convection in the ventilated cavity is clearly reproduced by the
method of TLBM compared to FVM. A small difference is also Note On the flow structure. Thus a further analysis
is conducted in this case by comparing the velocities of profiles (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4) and temperature profiles (Fig.5
and Fig. 6) at Y/2 and X/2 of the cavity. The table.2 present the maximum values of de velocities with its positions
in cavity. The results for velocities Ux/Uinlet and Uy/Uinlet for the two methods show good agreement and the error
of the maximum values is 1.30%. The same agreement is shown for the temperature values. We note that the two
190 Samir Houat et al. / Energy Procedia 139 (2017) 186–191
Samir Houat and Zine Elabidine Bouayed / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 5

values calculated by the lattice Boltzmann is (NuTLBM=6.3471) and by the finite volume (NuFVM=6.3406) are very
close with an error rate of 0.10%.

TLBM FVM (Fluent)

Fig. 2. Comparison results of the temperature field and streamline for

Ri=10, between the finite volume method and lattice Boltzmann.

Table 2. Comparison of the velocity values.

TLBM FVM (Fluent) Error %

Uxmax/Uinlet (X=0.5) 0.972 0.975 0.31

Y=y/H 0.120 0.133 9.77

Uymax/Uinlet (Y=0.5) 1.287 1.304 1.30

X=x/H 0.908 0.916 0.87

Fig. 3. Comparison of the velocity profile Uy/Uinlet at Y= 1/2 to Ri=10 Fig. 4. Comparison of the velocity profile Ux/Uinlet at X = 1/2 to
between the finite volume method and lattice Boltzmann. Ri=10 between the finite volume method and lattice Boltzmann.
 Samir Houat et al. / Energy Procedia 139 (2017) 186–191 191
6 Samir Houat and Zine Elabidine Bouayed / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

Fig. 5. Comparison of the temperature profile θ at X = 1/2 to Ri=10 Fig. 6. Comparison of the temperature profile θ at Y =1/2 to Ri=10
between the finite volume method and lattice Boltzmann between the finite volume method and lattice Boltzmann

6. Conclusion

This work is a numerical contribution to mixed convection study in a ventilated cavity with two openings. The
thermal lattice Boltzmann method with double population model is proposed for resolution of the thermal fluid flow
in cavity. The obtained results are compared with those obtained by the conventional method, especially finite
volume method results. This demonstrated a good agreement between the two methods. The TLBM model used has
all the advantages, including good numerical stability and the ability to manage the overall heat transfer by
convection problems.

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