Application of spectral forcing in lattice-Boltzmann simulations of homogeneous turbulence

An efficient numerical method for the direct simulation of homogeneous turbulent flow has been obtained by combining a spectral forcing algorithm for homogeneous turbulence with a lattice-Boltzmann scheme for solution of the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations. The spectral forcing scheme of Alvelius [Alvelius K. Random forcing of three-dimensional homogeneous turbulence. Phys Fluids 1999;11(7):1880–89] is used which allows control of the power input by eliminating the force–velocity correlation in the Fourier domain and enables anisotropic forcing. A priori chosen properties such as the Kolmogorov length scale, the integral length scale and the integral time scale are recovered. This demonstrates that the scheme works accurately with the lattice-Boltzmann method and that all specific features of the forcing scheme are recovered in the lattice-Boltzmann implementation.