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The selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is perhaps the most efficient process to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions in engine exhaust gas. Research efforts are currently devoted to realizing and tuning SCR-reactors for automotive applications to meet the severe future emission standards, such as the European “Euro VI”, in terms of NOx and particulate matter produced by vehicles. In this paper, we apply for the first time the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) as a computational tool to study the performance of a SCR reactor. LBM has been recently adopted for the study of complex phenomena of technical interest, and it is characterized by a detailed reproduction of both the porous structure of SCR reactor and the fluid-dynamic and chemical phenomena that take place in it. The aim of our model is to predict the behavior and performances of SCR reactor by accounting for the physical and chemical interactions between exhaust gas flow and the reactor.

In this paper, a multiphase Lattice Boltzmann approach is adopted to directly simulate flow conditions that lead to the inception of cavitation in an orifice. Different values of fluid surface tension are considered, which play a dramatic role in the evolution of vapour cavity, as well as different inlet velocities at the computational domain boundary. The results of the flow simulations in terms of density and velocity magnitude fields are examined, with special focus on the components of the stress tensor inside the cavitating region: a comparison with cavitation inception criteria known form literature is proposed, highlighting the good agreement between our direct numerical simulations and theoretical predictions.