Computational study of ultrasonic flow meter by lattice Boltzmann method

In this study, computational analysis of ultrasonic flowmeter was performed with regularized lattice Boltzmann method (RLBM). Because RLBM has the advantage of having explicit properties, parallel computing using general-purpose computing on the graphics processing unit (GPGPU) can significantly reduce computational time. A grid-convergence test was first conducted to find the minimum grid resolution required for ultrasonic wave calculation using RLBM. Based on the time-transit method, computational analyses of ultrasound flow meter were performed for various conditions of uniform velocity flow, wall-bounded shear flow, and grid-generated turbulent flow. The present computational method yields an error of about 3-5% for uniform velocity and wall-bounded shear flow conditions. However, in the grid-generated turbulent condition, the error is larger than in the previous cases. The computational results seem to indicate that the time difference of ultrasound arrival was highly influenced by the interaction of ultrasound waves with complex flow such as turbulence.