In the past ten years, Lattice-Boltzmann models have become an increasingly popular method for modeling the details of fluid dynamics in complex systems. In particular, two LBMs, one presented by Dardis-McCloskey in 1998 and the second by Thorne-Sukop in 2004, suggest a way to model fluid flow through porous media by introducing a variable related to the porosity of the medium, ns , which determines what portion of fluid is allowed to pass through the medium. Certain calculations used in these models suggest that mass is not conserved under particular conditions. To test this, a third LBM developed by members of the geofluids research group at the University of Minnesota was analyzed along with the Dardis-McClosky and Thorne-Sukop models to verify if mass is conserved for systems with multiple values of n s . The results of this test show that the UMN model satisfies the conservation of mass requirement.
Because LBMs provide a good way to model systems of complex pore geomoetries, the geofluids LBM is used to model well pumping tests to study possible factors that affect well efficiency, specifically turbulent flow due to the interaction between the water and the well screen.