THE OPENLB PROJECT: AN OPEN SOURCE AND OBJECT ORIENTED IMPLEMENTATION OF LATTICE BOLTZMANN METHODS

Abstract

The OpenLB project aims at setting up an open source implementation of lattice Boltzmann methods in an object oriented framework. The code, which is written in C ++, is intended to be used both by application programmers and by developers who may add their own particular dynamics. It supports advanced data structures that take into account complex geometries and parallel program executions. The programming concepts rely strongly on dynamic genericity through the use of object oriented interfaces as well as static genericity by means of templates. This design allows a straightforward and intuitive implementation of lattice Boltzmann models with almost no loss of efficiency. The aim of this paper is to introduce the OpenLB project and to depict the underlying structure leading to a powerful development tool for lattice Boltzmann methods.