Large-eddy simulation of thermally stratified atmospheric boundary layers with a lattice Boltzmann method

Abstract. Thermal stratification plays an important role in wind farm flows and must therefore be included in simulations of such flows. Meanwhile, wind farms are covering larger areas, requiring very large domains and leading to exceptional computational costs for Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is a novel approach to LES of wind farm flows that is particularly efficient and suitable for massively parallel hardware, such as GPUs (graphics processing units). In this work we present a novel model for LES-LBM of stratified atmospheric boundary layers, using a so-called double distribution function approach. We develop a novel boundary condition to apply Monin-Obukhov similarity theory and implement a number of other components required for simulations of stratified boundary layers in the GPU-resident version of the open-source LBM solver VirtualFluids. The model is validated for conventionally neutral and stably stratified boundary layers. Results agree closely with numerical references and the model is able to simulate conventionally neutral boundary layers at around realtime on a single GPU. Future work will include development of a precursor-successor method for wind farm flow simulations and improvements to the collision operator of temperature model.