Lattice Boltzmann simulation of dispersion in two‐dimensional tidal flows

A lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is applied to problems of dispersion in two‐dimensional water flows. The water flow is modelled by shallow water equations. A two‐distribution lattice Boltzmann equation algorithm is presented to solve the pollutant transport problem within the framework of shallow water flow. One distribution models the shallow water flow. The other distribution models the pollutant transport. Flow characteristics and concentration profiles of dispersive species are obtained at various flow regimes. For fast water flow, the concentration profiles are highly affected by the flow advection and become completely different from those at slow water flow. Numerical results are presented for pollutant transport in bounded and open channel flows. The proposed LBM is also used to simulate a pollution event in the Strait of Gibraltar. The obtained results indicate that the present method is useful for the investigation of transport phenomena by shallow water flows in complex geometries and practical flow problems. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.