Parallel lattice-Boltzmann simulation of fluid flow in centrifugal elutration chambers

We present parallel lattice-Boltzmann simulations of fluid flow in a centrifugal elutriation chamber, a cell separation device for human blood cells. The critical factor in this separation technique is the hydrodynamic flow field. Understanding the influence of design parameters of a chamber on the flow field is important in optimizations of this process. Two different issues are considered in this paper: load balancing of the parallel lattice-Boltzmann simulations and preliminary simulations of fluid flow for a range of Reynolds numbers. It is shown that by exploiting appropriate load balancing strategies, such as the orthogonal recursive bisection method, the lattice-Boltzmann scheme is an efficient method for this application. Furthermore, 2D simulations confirm that the quality of separation degenerates above certain Reynolds numbers.